Expendable People
by yncarn8
Summary: A Most Unlikely Hero - Volume 1 - An unorthodox cyberneticist assigned to help B-4 improve his cognitive function finds someone unexpected lurking in his neural net. She soon discovers a web of intrigue and perhaps true love with the most unlikely of heroes. Will they survive long enough to reach a happy ever after or will he turn a budding romance into an utter fiasco?
1. Prologue & Chapter 1

**Note from the author**

I own nothing, so should Paramount sue me they'd get sod all, but all the same I wish to state I do not own any characters from Star Trek be they the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager or Enterprise. I am merely borrowing them for a while and promise to give them a wash in warm soapy water before I return them. I am not making any financial gain from this story.

However, Taryn Prior is mine along with the many other original characters in this story.

This story is set approximately a year after The Battle of Bassen Rift in Star Trek Nemesis. I have made every effort to make this story true to canon.

I am aware of the series of licensed books that cover the same ground as this story, but if you are a nerdy Trekker like me with a lot of time on your hands you may also know there is historical information within the Star Trek Online MMRPG and the graphic novel, Countdown which launched the Movie reboot, all of which contains conflicts in plot and timeline. I have also frequently used the websites Memory Alpha and Memory Beta in researching this story, they've been invaluable. In the formation of this story I have drawn inspiration from all these sources and therefore I have had to take some liberties including diabolical ones in terms of timeline. I have also made some changes purely because I felt like it. Call it artistic licence. I'm aware these additional sources are not considered canon per se, if you consider them canon, then this story is AU from the end of Nemesis.

I haven't supplied any references for the episodes or movies used as sources in the story, but if you'd like to know where I got something from, drop me a line and I'll do my best to answer.

Finally, this story is complete and novel length rather than a WIP so expect regular updates. No I won't update quicker, patience is a virtue but each chapter is at least 4000 words so you should get a big chunk of plot each update at least.

And yes, I'm an anal geek.

Hope you enjoy it.

 **Prologue**

 _Day 48_

 _0600 hours_

The petite, jade-skinned woman nudged open the laboratory door with her foot. As usual her hands were full, a mug of coffee in her left hand, a toolkit in her right, an assortment of padds wedged under each elbow and a croissant between her teeth. She shuffled through the door, struggling not to drop everything with her knee at an awkward angle, preventing the door from slamming against her. She wore the uniform of a Starfleet officer, her teal collar signifying her expertise in the sciences.

"May I assist you Lieutenant Commander Prior?"

The voice startled her and one of the padds under her right arm slipped. A gold hand deftly reached out and caught it before it hit the floor. With his other hand he held the door open to allow her to pass through it. He followed her to a nearby workbench where she unloaded her burden and removed the croissant from her mouth.

"Thank you." she replied with a smile as she tucked a lock of raven hair behind a pointed ear. "How are you this morning?" Despite her alien appearance her cut-glass accent was unmistakeably English.

Beside her B-4 was gazing blankly at the padd in his hand.

"What is this for?" he asked.

"It's the work we need to get done today." she replied as she perched on a stool and pulled out another for him to sit on. She waved toward it and the android sat down and handed the padd back to her.

"Do we have to do it all?" he asked, "It looks like a long list."

"Why, do you have a hot date later?" she replied, winking at him cheekily.

"No." he advised her innocently.

"I'm only teasing you." She smiled and squeezed his forearm. He looked at his sleeve where her hand had been and touched it lightly, as if her hand had left some invisible mark. "I promise we'll be finished before you know it."

"I will know it." he replied blankly.

"I'm sure you will." she commented. "Name?"

"I am Da…." He stopped for a moment, his brow knitted. He met her steady, patient gaze, his bird-like eyes shining with both intelligence and confusion. Then his eyes lost their focus and his face took on an expression of ingenuous wonder. "I am B-4."

The young woman turned her green eyes to the sensor in the corner of the room and quirked her lip, before returning her gaze to the questionnaire.

 **Chapter 1**

Picard rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. He looked across at his Chief Engineer and could see it in his face as well. The sense of loss, the despair at the futile attempts to find some essence of Data in the husk that was B-4. The sorrow as they had deactivated B-4 and shipped him in pieces to the Daystrom Institute some months before. Ultimately his presence had been too painful a reminder and they bowed to pressure from the cyberneticists that had circled like vultures at the news of B-4's discovery and Data's loss. But it was more. A shared guilt burned between the officers that had served with Data as clearly as though they were a collective. They had done something Data would never have done. They turned their backs on Data's brother as soon as they found they could not use him as a means to recover their lost friend, as if B-4's limited capacity made him unworthy as a being in his own right.

They had grieved for Data, attempted to replace the irreplaceable and move on while the Enterprise E was in spacedock for its extensive repairs. All it took was one subspace call from Bruce Maddox and it all came flooding back. Maddox, a man whose name still stirred ill will amongst some of the crew, his callous attitude towards their android colleague in the past had ensured that. Yet this was a grudge that Data himself had never borne. Ironically Bruce Maddox had been the one to prevent Dr Jason Eden from reducing B-4 to his constituent parts to see how he worked, a fate Maddox had once planned for Data. Maddox had requested a subspace conference with the Captain and Chief Engineer regarding the status of B-4. Clearly the situation was serious enough to warrant him contacting them. Perhaps Maddox regarded them as some kind of next of kin? Isn't that what they were after all? Perhaps B-4 had suffered some kind of terminal malfunction and they were about to be informed of his death? He took a deep breath and activated the subspace link-up.

Maddox was in the midst of a heated conversation with someone on another channel. "...find his diagnostic records, software and hardware status as close to the time of his death as we can. We need a comparison to the records when he first came here for analysis and if we can't, we're screw… I'll call you back." he said rapidly. Picard's countenance darkened at the cyberneticist's turn of phrase. "Captain Picard, Commander La Forge. I apologize, things are a little… charged here at the moment. A lot has happened in a short space of time."

Picard cut straight to the point. "Has something happened to B-4? You mentioned 'time of death'. And I was told you wished to discuss his status."

"Again I'm sorry. B-4 is fine, better than fine." The cyberneticist drew a deep breath. In fact I'm calling about Data not B-4."

Picard and Geordi exchanged confused glances "Captain Maddox, what precisely are you trying to say?" Picard glowered.

"We believe he can be retrieved." His tone was impassioned, the same tone he had used at Starbase 173 when he had petitioned to take Data apart. The same tone he had used in the judicial enquiry to save B-4 from the same fate mere weeks ago. "We believe Data's matrix is intact within B-4 and while we still have many issues to resolve we are confident he can be fully restored."

"But we tried for months." La Forge explained "Yes, we saw flashes of what was clearly B-4 accessing Data's memories but he showed no comprehension. No sign that he was even trying to put any of it in context."

"Captain Maddox," Picard intoned with a gentle smile "none of us want to believe that Data is lost, but we have all had to learn to accept and come to terms with it. We know how B-4's presence and behaviour can lead you to believe Data is there, but it is an illusion." Maddox raised an index finger to interrupt.

"Just, wait. Let me show you something." He turned his chair and tapped deftly at a nearby panel. "One of our team has been working with B-4 for the past two months. She's a specialist in AI we brought in to assess his software and cognitive function. We've been trying to continue Data's efforts to encourage B-4 to develop new neural pathways. Now, her methods are a little unorthodox to say the least but watch this. This is day one"

An image of a laboratory appeared from a high angle and they watched B-4, dressed in a plain overall as usual, standing in the middle of the room as a female officer of Orion complexion struggled through an old style swing door carrying a ludicrous amount of equipment along with a mug of coffee and a pastry. The android stood impassively as the door swung back and hit her. Picard winced, the woman looked tiny, barely five feet tall or so and it was clearly a painful blow to the shoulder that caused her to spill scalding coffee down her uniform. As she wiped herself with a towel she deftly fielded a question about why she was green and took a seat near a counter, introduced herself and indicated for him to sit on the stool next to her with a sweep of her hand. When he didn't sit she patted the seat. Ultimately, but patiently she asked him to sit, patted his forearm comfortingly and began asking questions from a padd.

They continued to watch as footage marked as day thirteen was transmitted. He still let the door hit her, this time scattering her equipment across the floor. He said her name at her arrival this time, whether this was on seeing an object he recognized or as a greeting was unclear but she responded as though it were the latter. They were also surprised to see B-4 begin to help pick up the items she had dropped unasked.

Maddox voice broke through. "I thought she'd lost her mind when she asked us to fit a slam door on the lab and loaded herself up with all that stuff when she only uses one padd. She doesn't even drink coffee, she's immune to caffeine." He paused "This was day forty-eight."

Picard and La Forge watched incredulously as B-4 greeted her and caught the falling padd.

"That's a huge improvement." La Forge gasped, "B-4 had the hand eye coordination of a four year old at best, but what makes you think you're reaching Data?"

"Keep watching." Maddox advised. Picard's eyes widened at the androids response to the woman's touch and watched her ask his name.

"Mon Dieu." Picard whispered at his reply.

"This was this morning, day fifty-five."

 _Day 55_

 _0545 hours_

Taryn Prior was about to start her working day. She was standing with one arm folded across her chest chewing idly at her thumbnail. She was in the Control Room, a name that seemed far too grand for what had formerly been a storage cupboard in Cybernetics Lab 3 at the Daystrom Institute. On the few occasions where the entire team of four were present it was a tight squeeze with the unavoidable element of frottage causing embarrassment. Work surfaces lined the walls on all four sides with two corners occupied by terminals dedicated to diagnostics and environmental control. The opposite wall was comprised entirely of a surveillance system worthy of any duck blind in the federation. The large screen was divided into sections each displaying a view of the main lab. The lab itself was a study in contradictions. It was equipped with state of the art technology most scientists could only dream of getting their hands on, yet piled on most of the work surfaces were educational toys and books of various levels. Incongruous among the many terminals in the room was a classroom computer. Taryn would have preferred B-4's living space to be more homely but by necessity it had to remain an operational laboratory. Besides, B-4 seemed to like the lab, he liked the window overlooking the gardens. Her face was a mask of concern as she watched their innocent ward gazing out of that window, watching a storm rage in the world outside, a naïve smile on his face.

"And he's been like this all night?" she asked.

"Yep," he replied with a yawn, stretching in his chair. "It's been a boring shift. Buddy Boy hasn't touched any of his toys, no singing to himself. He's just stood there, watching the storm. Transfixed." Ensign Dan Ashby rubbed his blond hair and yawned again. "When I went in to check on him he asked me how the storm worked." The handsome young officer smiled. "I suggested we look it up on the terminal together but he refused. It was like he didn't want to miss what was going on outside. His diagnostics are all within normal parameters." He paused thoughtfully "I doubt he's seen a storm before. My guess, it's a stimulus response."

"No-one's seen a storm like this." she added. "It's not like the Global Weather Control Net goes down every day." She sighed, "Maybe you're right." She turned and began removing her collection of props from a crate on the counter. Something gnawed at her gut. This was new behaviour and new and unexpected behaviour from an AI made her edgy.

She was carving a niche for herself in the field of cybernetics and AI. A niche she didn't really have a name for. Some had suggested Artificial Psychologist but she loathed that term, it made her sound like a quack, a self-appointed lifestyle guru. She knew she'd have to come up with a term, if only to put something on the front page of the proposal for her PhD thesis. When anyone asked what she did, she'd simply say she worked with artificial life-forms. She'd recently turned down an opportunity to be part of a think tank working to determine what constitutes sentience and devising a new test for it. She told them she considered it futile. Rights for artificial life had been a hot button issue in recent times with cases popping up in the legislature with escalating frequency. Since the inception of the Soong Foundation, an organization that promoted the rights of artificial life, barely a month passed without a constructed being of some sort seeking redress or protection from the law from exploitation or even dismemberment, often by those who had created them in the first place. The scientific field was fast becoming divided ground. One side would argue that the products of their genius were tools to be used, nothing more. Then there were the likes of the dear departed Noonien Soong, a man who regarded his creations to be as much his children as if they'd been biological. Even that arrogant old fart Lewis Zimmerman (and she had called him that to his face once during a particularly heated debate, much to her shame) grudgingly acknowledged The Doctor as a life-form. Now there was a man in need of a name, 'EMH Mark-1' was so cold and 'The Doctor' always struck her as being a bit too Sci-fi. She was fond of him though, and his creator. She found their dry wit refreshing.

Bruce Maddox had been a late convert too, thanks to Data.

She had seen it coming for a long time. The drive to make holograms more responsive, more realistic; the efforts to make computers faster, more personable. All this had one logical conclusion.

Self-awareness.

To her, what made the quest for the ultimate definition of sentience pointless was that in her opinion, if you felt the need to demand your rights as an individual then you most likely were one and that was good enough for her. Who was she to say you don't count simply because you lack DNA. Besides, her commanding officer put the kibosh on her secondment to the think tank, despite her already refusing it. Heaven forfend he should actually discuss something before jumping in with both feet.

Then there were the cases she'd seen first-hand. The classified cases she could never discuss. There was far more inorganic life in existence, both home-grown and otherwise than was publicly acknowledged. Having gained a reputation as being 'good with AI' and an effective trouble-shooter, the Daystrom Institute was happy to lend her out, often sending her in as a last line of defence when something had gone horribly wrong such as the incidents on the USS Bastion and the USS Invincible (which sadly turned out to be extremely 'vincible' not to mention unhinged). She would show up, talk them down or shut them down, whichever preserved the most life. Unfortunately not all Captains had the panache of Jean-Luc Picard when it came to dealing with artificial life or the willingness to clean up their own mess. She'd seen a lot of mess, up to and including dismembered, mangled humanoids ripped to pieces by photonic hands and crewmen asphyxiated within their own computer cores simply because a burgeoning intelligence felt threatened. Not all artificial beings were as sweet and gentle as B-4. You learn to appreciate those qualities once you've been grabbed by the ankle and flung like a ragdoll against a holodeck wall. Not that working with B-4 hadn't come with its share of bruises.

Well, at least she wasn't getting battered by the door anymore. Her lip twitched into a half smile as she considered the progress they had made in the last two months. They had brought her onto the project to assess B-4's potential. By anyone's standards he barely squeaked through as sentient but she'd be the first to make an exception in his case. They had long given up on retrieving Data from what Jason Eden had angrily described as a 'miasmic quagmire of unstructured code inside B-4's muddled mind'. Taryn had felt that was a little harsh to say the least, not to mention his questionable use of alliteration, but felt that even taking Dr Eden's nefarious agenda into account it was probably justified. This seemed to be confirmed when she saw the 'unstructured' code for herself. She found it both beautiful and horrifying in equal parts. What unfolded on the three dimensional display of the scan Maddox had sent her was exquisitely intricate. A delicate, winding, warped spiral of twisted code that called to mind a bonsai tree, albeit a hideously deformed bonsai tree. At first glance it appeared to lack all harmony, all balance. It seemed a miracle that B-4 was functioning with any stability at all. He had clearly struggled to absorb the massive transfer Data had, with nothing but good intentions gifted to him. The android had failed to parse the data set successfully resulting in this twisted mass. Thankfully Data could never have known he handed B-4 a poisoned chalice, the scanning technique that produced the image was new technology developed after his death. How corrupt the contents of B-4's neural net were she had no way of telling, nothing to compare it to. It was a pity Data hadn't made a backup somewhere other than his brother's head, but then who could have anticipated the master copy being blown to bits.

She kept the holographic matrix on the coffee table in her quarters for the entire journey to Earth from the Daystrom Annex on Galor IV where she was stationed. She'd needed to get away. Admiral Haftel was on another empire building kick and she was on the verge of telling him where to shove her commission. You'd think he'd have learned his lesson when he drove poor Lal to cascade failure but the man was as tenacious as a bulldog when it came to AI, particularly androids. He just wouldn't listen to reason. Haftel had no compunction at all about riding roughshod over personal liberty in the name of scientific discovery. Taryn may have been as telepathic as a brick but even she could sense how suspicious the entire staff where becoming. Little things like discrepancies in the quantity of free memory in the Annex data core being dismissed as processor glitches with no further investigation deemed warranted and staff moved from labs they'd occupied for years with no notice, no apology for no apparent reason were sending up alarm bells. 'Ours is not to reason why.' Was rapidly becoming the Daystrom Annex motto, if Haftel wanted to play musical chairs with the faculty that was his business. They didn't know the half of it. She suspected she only knew about two-thirds.

Fortunately for the B-4 project it had been a boring voyage with little to distract her. Although she was only a quarter Vulcan she tended to follow their sleep patterns and divided her long waking hours immersed in research and gazing at the matrix that now symbolized four artificial lives and the memories of a long dead colony. She studied Data's logs both mission and personal as well as his correspondence files. She poured over schematics, reports and cognitive tests. The more she looked, and she looked long and often at the matrix, the more she saw in the glowing helix that rotated before her eyes. Four distinct shapes that had eluded her in the miasma now seemed so obvious.

The larger two data constructs were exquisitely structured with counterpoint and delicate nuances, yet were as individual as a snowflake. She concluded that over years of functionality each individual had added, amended and reshaped the code to reflect their unique evolving personality. The third was different, as though another person had taken the basic concepts of the other two programs and written another. It was among the most elegant and efficient code she had ever seen. One could even say it was an evolutionary step from the other two. Disappointingly it was a relatively small and undeveloped matrix. A pity, as it appeared to have so much untapped potential. A short-lived android? Lal she supposed.

The fourth construct had made her cry once she had recognized it. It was simplistic by comparison to the other two although it shared a similar basic pattern. It appeared to have the rudimentary components for an artificial intelligence, but higher reasoning and the potential for growth were tragically absent. It had been left incomplete, unfinished. B-4 had not developed as an individual by so much as an iota since his day of activation. He was a flower that would never bloom without significant intervention.

She fully understood Data's reasoning for merging his own matrix into B-4's positronic net, but sadly B-4 lacked the wherewithal to organize his own brain and their matrices became entwined and skewed, possibly irrevocably so. Like bindweed forming a twisted, deformed corkscrew.

She was far from happy to confirm the worst fears of Commander La Forge and the Enterprise crew. The behaviour, memories and shadows of Data that he had exhibited where most likely where their two matrices intersected. Part of her had hoped she could find something up her sleeve, weave some high-tech magic and restore the marvel that had been Data, a remarkable man who had touched so many lives and been taken too soon. However she knew it was a pipe-dream and felt no desire to exacerbate the torture of his friends. She had felt his death keenly having only met him once when she was a child and knew many in the field of cybernetics and AI felt the same. Those close to him must be utterly bereft at his loss.

So she shifted focus. What could she do to shore up B-4's social, cognitive and motor skills and make him the functional member of society everyone wanted him to be? By the time she reached Earth she had come up with a number of options and hit the ground running.

They could make selective permanent links between B-4's stunted matrix and Data's giving him a route for development. Most likely the side-effects would be no worse than the flashes of memory B-4 was already experiencing, but she couldn't guarantee not hitting a behavioural node and having aspects of personality emerge. There was also the fact she was by no means certain she could differentiate between Data's matrix and Lore's from the raw data. Although the risks were negligible the last thing anyone needed was another Lore, she hoped that nutter was gone for good. Ultimately, could she really risk messing with B-4's brain with the modern equivalent of a soldering iron based on her educated guesswork?

Another option was to dump the entire matrix to the Daystrom Core and strip it down. They could then attempt to painstakingly reconstruct a more robust matrix from the raw data. This plan also had its drawbacks. If they were going to resort to a technique that draconian they might as well endeavour to reconstitute Data. But would it be the same Data? Once the memories were housed in an inert computer core, as the man himself once eloquently put, 'the flavour of the moment could be lost'. It would also mean the permanent decimation of the remaining data structures. The legacy of Lal and Lore that Data had cherished would be lost forever along with a lasting memorial to the colonists at Omicron Theta in addition to B-4. A huge psychological burden for any life-form to bear, particularly one as prone to rumination and self-doubt as Data.

It would be a dangerous, one shot procedure that would effectively create a new being, one subject to the risks inherent in all infant Soong-type androids. Cascade failure. Even if they could nurse him to stability he may then decompensate due to grief and guilt. On balance they may as well hand B-4 over to Eden and be done with it.

Her third, and by far her favourite approach was one of intense cognitive stimulation. She designed a series of mind games and manipulations designed to elicit a response. She knew a few tricks, positronic sleight of hand that would make his neural net receptive to forming new pathways and would run him through a cognitive assault course each day. It would be a time consuming and gruelling process but they could always resort to other measures if all else failed or better ideas materialized. Fortunately Captain Maddox had agreed with her.

So every day at 6am sharp she had allowed a heavy door to slam into her arm for just over a month (the things a girl will do in the name of science). She was no masochist but in retrospect she felt it was worth it. It produced the desired result. Call it what you will, empathy, sympathy, chivalry or just good old fashioned pity it had eventually got his attention.

Step two, test his response to non-verbal cues or as she called it, the bums-on-seats test. Subtlety was not in B-4's skill set by any means, nor was any concept of body language. Both skills were important for his interpersonal and psychosocial development and they might as well start as they mean to go on.

Step three, non-threatening benign physical contact. In all the recordings she had been sent of his function tests she had yet to see anyone touch him. She wanted to gauge his response to touch as much as any other sense. She had cause to reiterate the 'non-threatening' and 'benign' aspect of this test more than once. The team understood that they had to be B-4's carers before they were scientists and engineers but they often heard golden oldies such as 'Maybe they should try giving him a lube job', 'that Orion chick just needs to find his button and turn him on. If you know what I mean." and many variations on the theme of 'stimulation' circling amongst faculty and students, usually accompanied by waggling eyebrows. All very funny she was sure but not really an appropriate way to discuss someone as vulnerable as B-4.

Step four was to ask his name. Seemingly a redundant part of the process but a vital safety measure. There was always the chance that as new pathways formed they would intersect the existing matrix, any part of the matrix. There was the same chance of personality bleed-through as there was with physically creating links but there would be nothing controlling where they happened. Memories from the colonists could resurface as easily as Data's, Lal's or Lore's along with the three androids behaviours. From the Enterprise records Data had a history of what she could only call 'possession'. This tendency to defer to a stronger ego was a worry as it could be a family trait inherent to all Soong-type androids. Should someone unexpected start surfacing she wanted to know who and she certainly wasn't going to wait for B-4 to start spouting rhetoric on Android Supremacy to shut him down and start a selective memory purge.

Next came a vast array of specially selected psychometric, cognitive and physical tests, not only to measure any improvement or lack thereof but stretch his cognitive muscles and stimulate the production of new schemas, followed by a number of scans and diagnostics. If he had questions, and he always did, they would encourage him to look the answer up for himself on the classroom terminal. Despite their best efforts he still would not use the terminal of his own volition. Ironic as Data had been all but glued to the one in his quarters by all accounts. All in all she spent around five to six hours a day putting him through his paces followed by at least as many hours reviewing the results and planning any changes to the process.

The afternoons were a lot less ordered as the team would take turns to come up with things to do. Maddox tended to read with him and encouraged literary debate, often a somewhat one-sided debate admittedly. Trust Bruce to find subtext in 'Toby the Targ'. Ruxia Dar, a talented diagnostic engineer was teaching B-4 yarn craft. Taryn thought the young Trill lieutenant deserved a citation for patience alone as he would often get in a tangle, but wasn't that half the fun of learning to knit? Dan the Man, as he had encouraged B-4 to call him had done it all, finger painting, potato prints, building bongos and guitars out of storage tubs and they would make models out of every substance from clay, papier-mâché, bits of old junk Dan found rummaging through bins at the Institute and more besides. If it was messy, it was in. Dan had truly missed his calling as a nursery teacher and they had virtually had to hose the pair of them down on more than one occasion.

Taryn was considered brave by her colleagues (or stupid, depending on who you spoke to.) She would take him outside. It started with the Institute garden, where B-4 looked at, and very gently touched a number of insects without harming them. Then to her horror he pulled up a huge plant to follow the progress of an earthworm. Taryn had caught hell from Steve the groundskeeper for that and apologized profusely of course. Once she explained the situation, Steve, who was 'no spring chicken anymore' requested B-4's help with some heavy lifting he needed doing and even agreed to let him help with some gardening.

 _"If he's gonna rip 'em up, he may as well learn how to plant 'em!"_ Steve had grumbled. She had to admit that despite his gruff manner the old man was wonderful with their naïf and it turned into a regular appointment. Subsequently Taryn and B-4 had visited galleries, museums, animal sanctuaries, even the beach (although in retrospect she should have checked he was fully waterproofed first.) She couldn't really understand why they insisted on shutting him in at the Institute, he wasn't prone to roaming. Even if he wandered off to look at something he was difficult to miss even in a crowd. If she could take her two maniacal nieces and little nephew (a child who turned 'throwing a wobbler' into an art form,) to the same places without incident she was sure she could supervise one 5' 10" android, and children don't have off switches.

Not surprisingly Eden had been her harshest critic. He accused her of anthropomorphising B-4 and applying pop psychology where it didn't belong. He openly ridiculed her methods, her findings, her conclusions, her theories. He called her a 'chit of a girl' who doesn't have a doctorate or know her place and made more than one reference to her ethnicity. Fortunately her skin was as thick as it was green, but yes, she found the suggestion that she should 'get her green ass back to the slave market' both offensive and unprofessional. B-4's cognitive function improved by three percent in the first week and his motor skills by two having been flat-lined since his activation on the Enterprise, but it was the matrix scan indicating a three percent increase in neural pathways that got her really excited. By the second week the new pathways appeared to be gradually changing the shape of the entire construct. Within a month the change to the matrix was obvious. To say it was unravelling the unholy mess would be a gross overstatement but it was certainly gaining some balance. His IQ was still drastically subnormal, but in that month it had doubled. Maddox wasted no time in informing Jason Eden of the good news and the eminent doctor threw his toys out of the pram and immediately requested a secondment to the Annex, where by all accounts Haftel greeted him like a prodigal son. Maddox described him as an 'odious little man who's lost all objectivity and good riddance to him'. Taryn thought he was an arsehole but was too much the consummate professional to ever say so. She now dreaded her return to Galor IV more than ever.

Then on day forty-eight the last thing she or anyone else had expected happened. Their boy had started having a full blown identity crisis that far outstripped even her worst estimates of personality bleed-through. All the psychometric results that day had confirmed it. Not only had he come excruciatingly close to referring to himself as Data, he was exhibiting aspects of his personality profile. A psychotronic stability exam was even more telling with a forty percent match to Data's baseline on file. At best he'd managed a five percent match previously, something they'd put down to their similarities in construction. Regardless, they had their doubts despite a statistically significant jump in his function test results too. Maddox and the team had bandied about words like 'glitch' and 'fluke'.

That had been a week ago, and those doubts had continued but the figures didn't fall, in fact they had risen by a slight but significant amount. In the face of all the evidence they simply could not believe everyone had been wrong and Data may still be salvageable. As a precaution however, they had stopped calling the android by name to reduce his confusion during the process. An unfortunate side-effect of this was a number of pet names springing into existence. 'Pal', 'Buddy', and 'Dude' were the current favourites. Taryn still sniggered over the time Ruxia had called him 'B-Fuddy' by accident.

"I'm back on days tomorrow." Dan advised her.

"Hmm?" she replied, torn from her reverie.

"I'm back on the day shift tomorrow." From his sideways glances this clearly had some additional significance she was unaware of.

"I know, I posted the roster." she commented.

"So how about that drink?" Dan asked "They do a great…. Synthale at that new place in town." He smirked.

She froze and turned to face him. "Who's been talking?" her manner was stern but the arch of her brow took the sting out of its tail.

"Maybe my old academy roommate works at Memory Alpha." He replied innocently "and perhaps he got talking to a guy there. Skinny, tall, fluffy hair…"

"That would be my brother Cadfael." She smiled. "You forgot to mention his big, flapping mouth." She picked up a padd and stylus and returned to her work.

"Now, you can't fight biology baby. Nature made me tall, blond and dashingly handsome…" he comically swept back his hair at the temple, "and made you dance on table tops and belt out show tunes after a couple of drinks."

"It was more than a couple of drinks," she replied moodily, "and they weren't all show tunes." she added. Her intolerance to synthehol had become apparent during her cousin's wedding and was a constant source of embarrassment her loved ones never let her forget. "And I do fight biology," she advised him. "I suppress my pheromones." Orion DNA came with its drawbacks, particularly for Orion females who produce pheromones that influence many humanoid species in varying ways. In the case of males, particularly human and Orion males the musk of a green woman encouraged attraction, arousal and made them extremely susceptible to the woman's suggestion. In the past, men who purchased a green slave woman would soon find themselves enthralled in more ways than one. The pheromones also gave human females headaches, not exactly conducive to a good working atmosphere.

"That's a shame," he grinned, "always a fan of Orion pheromones."

"Didn't we all have to sit through a seminar about this kind of conversation?" she grinned, continuing to examine the padd.

"Yeah, I guess." he responded with a sigh and changed the topic, "I didn't realise you were adopted."

"I'm not adopted," she replied, "what makes you say that?"

"Your brother is human."

"Actually four of my brothers are human, and two sisters," she checked a nearby console and continued to take notes, "although technically they're half-siblings. I also have a twin who is obviously a hybrid as well."

"Is she single? Is she green too? Because I have this friend…"

"Single yes, green no." and with a wry smile she added "and unless your friend is female I doubt they'd be his type."

He looked disappointed and folded his arms. "Bang goes our double date then. So, what are you genetically speaking?"

"Half human, quarter Vulcan and quarter Orion." She explained.

"I bet that's not as much fun as it sounds." His tone was genuine. Despite his being an incorrigible flirt she and Dan had become good friends in the last two months. She was also well aware he flirted with everyone and knew better than to take it seriously. "Being the only green kid in eight can't have been a barrel of laughs, especially with idiots like Eden around. Hell, I thought it was bad enough being a middle child."

"Actually I was always teased for being short at home, no-one ever bothered that I was green," she paused thoughtfully, "but yes, outside the family you always find rogue elements like Eden." She froze. A look of realization came over her face. "Rogue elements…" She rapidly stepped over to the environmental terminal and called up a display. She thumped the desk with her palm in frustration. "It's an electrical storm. The storm is doubling the charge of the anti-electron field and it's fluctuating."

The anti-electron field was her secret weapon. Harmless to biological life-forms, an ultra-low intensity charged field surrounded the laboratory and stimulated activity in the android's neural net. It was the catalyst for his personal growth. She leant over Dan's shoulder and enlarged one of the viewpoints. One that showed the android's face and upper torso.

"See his eyes, his breathing." She shook her head and moved to launch a level four diagnostic of his systems. Dan watched as the yellow eyes darted rapidly, following the patterns in the storm as if he were reading at high speed. The rise and fall of his chest was fast, pumping to draw in air to cool his system.

"Damn. How did I miss that?" Dan chided himself. "He's over-stimulated and overheating." He blinked and swallowed hard. "Taryn, how bad is this? Is he going to crash?"

"It's not your fault, you did everything right." she reassured him. "You ran the diagnostics, within normal parameters remember? It's just with these Soong boys you sometimes have to think like a doctor as much as an engineer." She looked over at her worried colleague. "He's upright, that's generally a good sign." She carefully examined the readout that appeared on screen. "No sign of cascade or any other failure, he's stable. He's running hot, but he's coping. His neural activity is spiking but it's just barely within normal parameters. Micro-hydraulic power is up but he's redistributing it okay. Fluid pressure is higher than I'd like..." She paused. "He's….excited, I don't know what else to call it."

Taryn leant on the terminal, her fingers beating a steady tattoo against its smooth sides. Perhaps no field at all was preferable to the positronic rollercoaster that was wreaking invisible havoc in the lab. The storm had been raging all night. She knew that rest time was important to the developmental process as the work they did during the day. He was a construct that mimicked human function, he even 'breathed' and had a pulse, although these functions served entirely different purposes to his organic counterparts. They pushed him hard during the day and he needed time to review and give structure to all that he learned. The field supported this process as much as it did his learning in the day and would run constantly. Human infants perform this ordering process as they sleep however B-4 never slept, he also lacked the capacity to dream that Data had discovered so at night they allowed him rest time although this usually took the form of unstructured play. Someone was always there in the control room but would visit him at set times and run remote diagnostics if they became concerned.

He was unrested, could she risk running his daily routine under the circumstances? It was already a lot of stress for a developing mind. Then again what effect would breaking his routine have? She just didn't know. Words came unbidden to her mind, something her Orion grandmother had once said.

 _"If you can't handle pressure Taryn, you'll never shine like a diamond."_

One of many trite phrases the woman would trot out, but this one seemed strangely apt. That's exactly what her process was. She was applying pressure to B-4 to make him form an awareness in the same way you would to carbon atoms to make a diamond. But a diamond and a psyche have something in common.

They are prone to flaws.

She had to act. Take the stress off before the mind they were building cracked under the pressure.

"Okay. Call in Captain Maddox, we'll need him here if he starts to decompensate. I'll shut down the field." She dived for the other terminal and began rapidly keying in the shutdown sequence.

Dan reached to open a channel then stopped, distracted by the monitor. "Wait, where's he going?"

"What?" She turned in time to see the android turn from the window and move out of camera range.

Dan rapidly shifted to another viewpoint and they watched incredulously as the gilded being crossed the room, opened the door and peered into the corridor.

Taryn broke the silence. "Dan? What time is it exactly?"

He called up the chronometer on the screen. "It's 0600 and 21 seconds." Realisation spread across his handsome face. "He's looking for you."

Taryn squeezed his shoulder. "I'd best not keep him waiting then."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

It took a matter of minutes for Taryn to grab her gear and head for the corridor connecting the Control room to the Lab having decided to adopt the usual routine but play things by ear. She even remembered her customary coffee and pastry although today the croissant was balanced on the top of the mug. She had a feeling she would need her mouth available from the outset today and not use having her mouth full as a ruse to encourage him to fill the silence.

Like all Soong-type androids B-4 had an internal clock that primarily controlled the timing of his functions. This also made his younger brothers acutely aware of the time of day and the passage of time. Although B-4 had the software for this function he remained ambivalent regarding time. He could tell you what time it was, but if you asked him to do something or told him something was going to happen at a specific time he would ignore the request or show no concept of anticipation.

Until now.

The door swished open onto a cramped corridor that was formerly part of the lab. A false wall had been constructed to house the door that had made many question the sanity of Taryn Prior. Standing in the doorway was an android with an expectant expression on his face.

"Good morning." she said cheerily.

"You are late." he advised her. "I have been waiting." As she reached the door he relieved her of the toolkit. Balancing it on his inner arm he proceeded to take the padd's from her and stacked them on top, leaving her just holding the mug. "Have you seen the weather?"

"I have, isn't it ghastly?" she replied and followed him into the lab, noting with a certain sense of pride that he was the one taking control today. He held the door open for her, looking for all the world like a boy carrying her books home from school. "It reminds me of Wales."

He looked excited. "Are there cetaceans here?" He crossed the room to their customary work bench and put down the items. He then pulled out her stool and waited for her to sit before sitting himself.

She laughed as she placed the mug on the counter, "Not whales, Wales, the place."

"Accessing…." He said, his eyes darting from side to side as if reading some invisible text. Taryn could have fallen off her stool. B-4 had never attempted to access his knowledgebase. She wasn't at all convinced he knew what it was, let alone where to find it. Above her head she made the shape of a 'D' with her hands and held up three fingers. The signal to the control room that she wanted a level three diagnostic of his systems, a process that would take some time but may yield more interesting results than their usual scans.

"Ah. A small country, part of the British Isles. Often referred to in comedy as having extremely wet weather prior to the establishment of the Global Weather Control Ne..ver saw the sun…" he began to sing. She recognized it as a classic from what they affectionately referred to as 'The Data Medley'. "…..shining so bright, never saw things going so…" his demeanour suddenly changed and he leaned towards her, "Your hair is looking," he paused and gently stroked the braided hair that fell over her shoulder, "particularly silky tonight." He whispered in a tone that was unmistakeably romantic and Taryn had to admit, a little creepy.

She arched a brow. _"Oh Commander, weren't you the Dark Horse."_ she mused.

"In every way, of course. I am programmed in multiple techniques. A broad variety of pleasuring." he whispered earnestly, she noticed he was triangle gazing, his glance rotating between her lips then each of her eyes in turn.

 _"Nice touch Dr Soong."_ she marvelled at the subtlety of his programming. _"Hell of a chat up line too, I bet he said that to all the girls."_ Had Taryn been biologically capable she would probably have blushed to her socks. Clearly B-4 was reliving some of Data's more private experiences.

"You are not my mother!" he proclaimed angrily

 _"Glad to hear it."_ Taryn thought. _"Never a good idea to proposition your mother."_ Joking aside, she was worried, this was getting out of control. This was not like any flashback B-4 had displayed previously.

"Baby needs a new pair of shoes." He shook his clenched left hand as if holding dice and blew into it then clicked his fingers following the roll. She began to consider the notion that it might be time cancel this high-rollers line of credit and bring this stroll down memory lane to a screeching halt. She moved her hand gently to the small of his back, reaching towards his off switch.

"I am French, not Swiss." he informed her "I am from…. South America." His head jerked to one side suddenly and he closed his eyes as if in pain. Then he relaxed, blinked slowly and looked around the room. "Where am I?" he asked her earnestly examining her face.

Her heart jumped in her chest. "This is the Daystrom Institute." she told him calmly. "Earth."

His eyes widened in surprise, "I was on board the Enterprise. I had just initiated a memory transfer into B-4's positronic net." He frowned, "How did I get here?"

"That's a long story," she sighed.

"I am getting a null response from four of my memory engrams." He frowned. "Twelve are in incorrect locations. My emotion chip is absent. I have a firmware compatibility error in my secondary sub-processing unit. There is an occlusion in my…" Realisation dawned. "This is not my body." He looked at her in alarm. "I am in B-4." He examined her face again. "You seem familiar, have we met?" he turned his head. "I appear to be having a malfunction in my memory retrieval system." He swallowed hard. "I shall engage my self-repair protocols."

"No, no no…" She grasped his hand. "Don't self-repair." she warned, "Keep calm Data. We're running diagnostics now, we've got you." She knew his internal repair mechanism would trigger reset commands throughout his system, it risked them losing contact. She needed to buy time for the deep diagnostic to finish while he was still Data. She suspected this was no more than a window of opportunity, a window that may slam shut at any moment.

"What has happened to me?" he asked plaintively.

Most of her waking hours in recent weeks had been spent considering every aspect of this project, yet it had never occurred to her she would need to have this conversation.

She spoke slowly and calmly. "A short time after the transfer the Remans engaged the Enterprise at The Bassen Rift. Captain Picard was stranded aboard the Scimitar and Shinzon had deployed a thaleron weapon. You spacewalked over and evacuated Captain Picard with an Emergency Transporter Unit." She paused considering her words carefully, "It's assumed you fired a phaser at the thaleron matrix destroying the Scimitar." She drew a deep breath. "You were vaporized in the blast."

"Vaporized?" he asked, his eyes widening

"Yes," she replied, "but you saved the Captain, saved the crew, saved the Enterprise." She explained. "That was just over a year ago."

He blinked slowly. "What has happened to Spot?" he asked suddenly.

"Spot? I.. I don't know. I can find out." she reassured him with a squeeze of her hand. He gipped her fingers gently, closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, uncharacteristic strain showing in his face. "Data, I know you want to clear those errors but you have to fight the urge. I need you to stay and talk to me." She intoned. "We have met, I was, what? Eleven I think, perhaps twelve." She took him gently by the chin and turned his face back to hers. "It was just before you joined the Enterprise, you piloted my father to Mars."

He looked at her even, delicate features. "Captain Prior from the Judge Advocate General's Office," he responded. "You asked me if I brush my teeth." His eyes flicked from side to side then returned to hers. "You are Taryn."

"Yes Data." she smiled and squeezed his hand.

"This is all very confusing." there was the slightest catch in his voice.

"I know, but you're doing really well." she reassured.

Unable to hold back anymore he closed his eyes, made an almost imperceptible twitch with his head and his face went blank as he went into diagnostic mode. She exhaled slowly as his grip on her hand faded. The android turned to the window.

"Why has it stopped raining?" he asked innocently.

She looked over at the window. It had indeed stopped raining, they must have finally repaired the weather net.

She touched her communicator briefly, "Prior to Control. Please, please tell me the diagnostic completed." Time seemed to stretch out as she waited for a reply.

"We got it Taryn." It was Captain Maddox' voice. "We got it all."

...

 _17 years earlier._

To anyone else it would have been a cacophony of noise but not Lieutenant Commander Data. As he opened the hatch on the shuttlecraft he was able to immediately distinguish the song from the birds in the trees and on the rooftops which he identified as a five pigeons, two wood-pigeons, eight sparrows, five blue-tits, a pair of doves and a blackbird. From further away he heard the plaintive bleat of a mute Swan calling to its young. He was aware of rustling in the undergrowth and a nibbling sound that he calculated with 87.324% certainty was a squirrel. From a nearby garden a large dog was barking, probably a mastiff of some sort he concluded with 92.735% accuracy. From within the nearest cottage he could discern the voices of seven individuals. An adult male was singing in the shower, an adolescent male was enquiring as to the whereabouts of a pair of rugby boots, a pre-adolescent female was protesting that she hadn't seen any rugby boots and asking where he'd left them, a toddler was screaming that someone had dismembered their doll, another pre-adolescent of indeterminate gender was howling with laughter, an infant of no more than a year was wailing and sobbing and from an upstairs window he could clearly make out the sound of snoring. Throughout this he could hear the strains of a Vulcan lyre played at an advanced level. He recognised the melody as the 'Moonlight Sonata' by Ludwig Van Beethoven, a seemingly incongruous choice. Aside from the lack of auditory harmony Data would have to describe the setting and the cottage as idyllic, especially on a warm day in the countryside of southern England.

As he opened the gate the front door was thrown wide and a teenager of around eighteen emerged in shorts and a tight-fitting shirt. He slammed the door behind him and barrelled down the path towards Data, a large holdall slung across his upper body and a pair of studded shoes in his hand. Data deftly stepped aside for the rushing teen.

"Morning sir." The brown haired youth called as he rounded the gate post and sprinted down the road.

"Good morning." Data replied and resumed his journey toward the house. He rapidly found the doorbell and pressed it.

A large mahogany coloured face appeared over the fence beside his shoulder, its teeth bared in a fierce growl as drool rolled down his drooping jowls, its amber eyes fixed on the android officer. He was right, it was a mastiff. He recognized the breed as a Dogue de Bordeaux.

A small girl opened the door with a baby's bottle in her hand, to Data's surprise her skin was emerald in colour. She drew in a rapid breath and screwed up her face. Data predicted a 98.253% probability she was about to scream.

He had received many reactions to his presence in the twenty-five years since his activation. Surprise, disdain, fear, even disgust but he had yet to beget terror in an individual. He momentarily doubted his suitability for this mission, it had seemed straightforward enough when he had received his orders. Take a shuttlecraft to the stated coordinates, collect Captain Prior and escort him to the Utopia Planitia Colony on Mars to settle a legal dispute. He had been chosen primarily because he was due meet the Enterprise at the dockyard there where he would assume the post of Second Officer. The transfer had come with a promotion, as signified by the additional circular pip on his collar. He knew he had earned the promotion by virtue of his service record but took no pride in it. He didn't feel pride, he didn't feel anything at all and yet he did not see his promotion as the inevitable result of a job well done, it was something more than that.

Many had questioned his capability to assume command of a starship, a duty inherent to his new position. Many believed he was no more worthy of command than the ship's computer, isn't that what he was? A walking computer? Some had frequently referred to him as that. He had yet to meet his new commanding officer. However he had been surprised to find he had been assigned quarters when he examined his orders and had contacted Starfleet Command. He had never been given quarters before, he didn't need them. He was advised that Captain Picard was aware he did not require rest or diversion, yet had insisted. Data in return had insisted the assignment be swapped. It would be unfair to occupy spacious rooms with a view as befitting his rank when smaller quarters on the inside of the saucer would more than suffice.

0.48 seconds had elapsed since the girl had gasped. He had been a Starfleet officer for fifteen years but nothing in his experience had prepared him for approaching the problem of a snarling dog or a screaming child let alone both at the same time. The dog was approximately 2.786 times the girl's size, should it attack her she would be severely injured, if not killed. He ran through 9,567 separate scenarios applying what he knew about canine and pre-adolescent Orion anatomy to ensure the optimal outcome. He raised his micro-hydraulic power by fifteen percent to anticipate the speed required to place his arm in the dog's mouth should it strike...

"DAD!" the girl bellowed. "Your shuttlecraft is here!" She turned to the dog in the garden next door and scowled. "Shoo! Clear off Henry!" To Data's surprise the dog, Henry apparently, licked his lips, made a small whining noise, then turned and lumbered away.

It appeared his programs for anticipating child and animal behaviour required adjustment.

"Come in Commander, Dad won't be long." She held the door open for him and directed him into the living room.

The cottage was deceptively large and the living room occupied at least half of the ground floor. In the centre of the room was a playpen housing a crying infant standing clutching at the sides.

"Shush, Nye." The green child said softly, handing him the bottle and stroking his fair hair gently. The boy hurriedly placed the teat in his mouth and sucked hungrily. "Have a seat, please." she told the officer indicating the couch.

In the corner by the unlit fireplace was a child playing the lyre. He was approximately eleven, and appeared to be the same size and age as the green girl, but was clearly Vulcan. The boy had reached the end of the piece and began playing again from the start, he looked intently at Data as he played and frowned, then returned his gaze to a place in the hearth of no apparent significance and closed his eyes. A slender boy with dark curly hair slightly older than both the alien children was standing on another couch, taunting a much younger girl with a pair of small legs. The girl, who looked no more than two had messy auburn hair and clutched a fair headed doll, sans legs to her chest, her lower lip quivering. The doll waved her arms in protest, her lips moving soundlessly. He noticed that all of the children, regardless of skin colour had identical coloured eyes, including the young man who had run past him. An unusual shade of dark green.

"Are you Commander Data?" the green girl asked politely, perching on the arm of the sofa Data was sitting on with her feet on the seat.

"Yes, and you are?"

"Taryn Prior" the girl extended her hand confidently and he shook it. "May I ask you a question?"

"Of course." He replied

"I read that you sometimes use a silicon based nutrient solution as a lubricant." She paused, "Do you drink it? I mean like we drink, or do you put it…somewhere else? A grease nipple of some sort."

The older curly haired boy had clearly lost interest in tormenting the little girl with the doll as he had returned the legs, and was now sat picking his nose and flicking the results at the Vulcan child who scowled at him. He also began giggling and repeating the word 'nipple'.

"I do indeed, drink it." he told her watching as the tiny girl crossed the room and handed the parts of the doll to Taryn.

"Fix her Ta'in?" the girl pleaded.

A tall, dark haired man, of middle years with greying hair at his temples and slender physique appeared at the door wearing a bath robe.

"Sorry to keep you Commander Data. As you were, sit down son." He added as Data went to rise. He spoke in a lilting accent that Data recognised as Welsh. "I just need to dress and kick Number Two Son's lazy backside out of bed." He tousled Taryn's long black hair. "I hope my green-eyed monsters aren't scaring the life out of you." he said brightly then sighed resignedly "Cadfael, stop flicking bogies, and Emlyn, play something else please?"

The boy changed to dark, ominous chords as the man left the room.

"Not Klingon Opera!" the man shouted as he headed upstairs.

The boy stopped playing and looked at Data with a puzzled expression.

"He wants to know why he can't read you and you don't seem to hear him." Cadfael advised Data. "He's deaf and he can't speak but he's telepathic."

"He's an android Emlyn. A living machine." Taryn said, also signing to the boy with some kind of gestural language. Emlyn smiled, and signed something in return, nodded in Data's direction and returned to the lyre, his fingers danced over the strings producing a light hearted folksy tune that Data did not recognise.

"He's sorry for staring, he didn't mean to be rude." Taryn translated, "We can't read each other either, that's why we have to sign." Taryn explained as she removed a small hyperspanner from her pocket and began the delicate work of reattaching the legs of the animatronic doll as her little sister watched. Clearly this was a task she had performed on many occasions. He suspected it was her apparent Orion DNA preventing her from telepathic contact with her brother. Orions were renowned for a lack of psionic ability despite their physiological similarities to Vulcans. A lock of hair fell into her eyes and the girl swept it behind her ear, Data noticed it was pointed.

"How does he play if he cannot hear?" Data asked his face puzzled.

"Vibrations," Taryn replied, "and because someone in the room can hear it and he's reading it from their mind."

"Intriguing. But the Captain spoke to him…"

"He thought it as well." Taryn explained, "Dad speaks for our benefit. So Emlyn is treated the same as the rest of us." Data watched with interest as she finished attaching the legs and laid the doll face down on her knee then popped open a panel.

"Don't hurt her!" the tiny girl wailed.

"I won't hurt her. I'm making her better." Taryn explained, "Truly needs a little operation. Will you assist me Nurse Tegan?" she asked as she tucked her tool behind her ear and pulled a laser driver from her pocket.

"Nurse Tegan!" the little girl squealed. "Doctor Ta'in."

"So, do you brush your teeth after?" Taryn asked as she worked. Data looked at her questioningly. "After you drink your android smoothie do you brush your teeth?" Her face shone with genuine interest.

"No." he replied. "Should I?"

"I would." she replied. "But then I clean my teeth three times a day," she advised him, "and I floss."

"That's because you're weird." Cadfael added.

"That's why you have tooth decay." Taryn pointed out.

"Are you endeavouring to repair the vocal sub-processor?" Data enquired, watching her work.

"Yes," she replied. "It's been on the blink since next door's dog got hold of her. I'm waiting for some parts, but I can sometimes get it to work."

"On the blink?" Data asked. "Accessing… Ah, broken, faulty, malfunctioning, on the fritz, out of order, playing up. I understand." Taryn smirked, although he was unsure why. She flicked a chip with her finger twice and the doll began to speak.

"Hi I'm Truly, I can sing and dance!" it proclaimed.

"Yay!" Tegan cheered as Taryn locked the chip in position with the driver and shut the panel. "Fank you Ta'in." She took the doll from her sister and sat her on the coffee table. "Macabraina!"

The doll stood and began to dance, her arms moving in a complicated pattern. She sang in Spanish and at the end of each phrase jumped by ninety degrees. The little girl waved her arms in parody and bounced in time to the music.

"Did you construct this doll yourself?" Data asked, watching as Tegan requested a different tune and the doll complied, this time a song apparently involving bending over and shaking your tail feather.

Taryn nodded in a matter of fact way. "I based the program on a holodeck data file of archaic dances." she told him, "She's not as complex as I'd like, but seeing as dolls around here always end up flushed down the toilet at some point it seemed silly to do more."

"It is nonetheless a most impressive accomplishment Miss Prior." Data told her, he was genuinely impressed.

"Thank you." Taryn said with a shy smile.

A sullen teenager of around fifteen shuffled into the room, his shirt buttoned wrong and hanging open, his hair a ruffled mess. He grunted a greeting at Data as he scratched his armpit. He was followed by Captain Prior, this time in uniform.

"And when I say look after the kids Haydn, I do not mean sod off back to bed and leave everything to Taryn." The captain warned.

"What about me? I'm older than Taryn." Cadfael moaned.

"Start acting it then." His father advised him, kissing the boy on the forehead followed by the rest of the children in turn. "Geoffrey should be back by three, but Mum won't be back till after you're all in bed." he told them. "I hope." he added under his breath "Taryn, don't forget you have gymnastics at four." He picked up his youngest son to kiss him, pulled a face then passed him to the moody teen. "I think you'll find Aneurin needs changing and Tegan, brush your hair please?" he asked the tiny girl.

"No Daddy." she pouted.

"I'll sort her hair Dad." Taryn assured him and as Data rose she added. "Nice to meet you Commander Data."

"You too Miss Prior. Nice to meet you all." he added.

The two officers left to a chorus of good-byes. "Three different mothers." Iestyn Prior said as he took the co-pilots seat. At Data's expression he added. "Everyone asks."

"You have an… interesting family." Data noted as he ran through the pre-flight check. "It is statistically unusual to have seven children, although it was not always so."

"My wife is currently cooking number eight." He added with a smile.

"Why would your wife prepare your child for ingestion?" Data asked, a confused and slightly alarmed expression his face.

The human officer smirked, "Forgive me Commander, it's a euphemism. I mean she's pregnant. She'd have been here today with the kids but she has a big installation."

"Ah… Is she an engineer?" Data asked politely as they took off

The Captain laughed. "No, she's an artist. She has a showing at the Louvre next week." Data was impressed, clearly this was a family of many talents. "I hope my daughter didn't harass you too much. She's something of a fan."

"On the contrary." Data told him. "She seems very intelligent, her questions were most insightful and polite."

"She's a bright girl," he smiled, "and she may be polite but ten more minutes and she'd have had you dismantled on the dining room table, believe you me."

Data tilted his head, he almost looked nervous. "She does appear to have a keen interest in cybernetics."

The Welshman nodded. "She's too clever by half, especially the sciences." He sighed. "I worry about her. She's heading for puberty and the doctors say she appears to have a working set of Orion pheromone glands. We're considering sending her to live with her Orion grandmother on Barin Prime. It'll break her twin's heart if she goes and he's got his own problems. It'll break all our hearts, not to mention wreaking havoc on her education."

"That cannot be an easy decision." Data said. "The young man with the lyre is her twin?" Data asked. "He is very talented."

"Thank you." the captain responded. "We're very proud of him. Proud of all of them. Even Haydn 'The Beast from the Pit' and Cadfael 'The Snot Monster'" He laughed. "We're hoping it's just a phase."

"If I may make a suggestion sir." Data intoned. "Vulcan's are capable of high levels of physiological control." He paused. "If your daughter has Vulcan DNA she may be able to learn to control her hormone levels. Although Vulcan children start training at a much younger age she does not appear to lack mental discipline and her lack of telepathic ability may not necessarily preclude the possibility."

"You know, I never thought of that." Iestyn rubbed his chin. "Couldn't hurt to look into it. Perhaps I'll contact her great-grandmother on Vulcan, she's always taken an interest." He looked over at Data. "Thank you Commander."

"You are welcome. May I make a personal inquiry sir?" Data asked.

"Of course." Iestyn said brightly.

"What is it like? Fatherhood?"

Iestyn Prior coughed. "Er… Is that all?" he laughed, then drew a deep breath. "I suppose it starts when your significant other looks up at you over the toilet rim where she's been throwing up her breakfast. She has this look on her face and you just know in your bones it isn't gastroenteritis. Then you start to worry, because this woman you're in love with and adore, if you're lucky, and would do anything to protect is now carrying something so precious and vulnerable and they are both inextricably combined. You just want to wrap her up in cotton wool to protect her, but if you get over-protective she just gets angry. In fact you end up tip-toeing around her because her mood will shift like the wind. One minute it's tears, the next she'll be screaming at you and after that ordering something really foul from the replicator because of the cravings. With me so far?"

"I believe so sir." Data replied.

"Before you know it you're standing in a delivery room, bathed in sweat, your missus is squeezing all the bones in your hand to a fine powder, screaming her head off and calling you every name under the sun." he paused for a moment. "Then they put this tiny little stranger in your arms and you fall utterly and hopelessly in love at first sight. You know there is nothing you wouldn't do to protect this precious little person." He smiled at the memory, "After that it's putting food in one end, wiping crap off the other and pandering to their every whim. There's tears and tantrums and chaos and cuddles and school and toys and mess, but when you watch them sleeping you feel so much love and emotion you think your heart may burst out of your chest." He paused thoughtfully. "Then they're shipping off to the Academy, or University in what seems like the blink of an eye." He turned to Data. "That's where I've got to in the adventure so far."

"Is that where your sense of responsibility ends?" Data asked. "When they reach adulthood?"

"Good God no. I don't think it ever ends. It's there from the day they are born to the day you die." The man explained.

Data considered this thoughtfully, "Thank you sir, although this is not something I will ever experience for myself I am interested in the human condition."

"Why not?" at Data's surprised expression he added. "No I mean it, why not? You may be incapable of fathering a child biologically but plenty of infertile men use other options to have children. There's plenty of kids up for adoption and fostering."

"I am not an infertile man, I am an android. I would be excluded from adopting a child."

"On what grounds?" the man asked indignantly.

"There are many individuals who have reservations regarding my sentience and abilities as an officer. In fact this shuttle was due to carry an additional passenger but they refused to accept me as their pilot. There would be similar misgivings should I attempt to adopt and raise a child."

"That doesn't seem right." Iestyn said, "Especially as men father children every day with only the merest fraction of the thought you would apply to it and even in this day and age there are some utter bastards having children who shouldn't be allowed within fifty metres of them." He turned his green eyes to Data. "I wasn't aware you faced such prejudice. I'm sorry."

"That is alright sir."

"No son, it's far from alright." the captain told him. "Things may change though. I happen to know a budding scientist who may have a morbid fascination with your innards but even she hasn't lost sight of the fact you're clearly a person, not a thing."

"Thank you sir." Data said sincerely and began the landing procedure.

"I hear your next assignment is the Enterprise." Prior commented.

"Yes sir."

"I'm sure you'll do very well there. Picard's a good man, he'll steer you right."

"Thank you sir, I will endeavour to function to the best of my abilities."

The shuttle touched down, and Captain Prior rose to his feet and grabbed his small case as Data opened the hatch and both men stepped outside.

"It's been a pleasure Commander Data," he smiled at the android warmly and shook his hand, "and if I may give you a bit of fatherly advice: Never rule anything out. None of us know what the future holds."

 _References_

 _Blue Skies – Irving Berlin_

 _Moonlight Sonata - Ludwig Van Beethoven_

 _The Macarena - Los del Rio_

 _Shake a tail feather - Otha Hayes, Verlie Rice, and Andre Williams_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

For probably the first time in his life Captain Bruce Maddox wished he'd spent more time in the gym. While his position as the Associate Chair of Robotics at the Daystrom Institute afforded him a billet on campus just a short walk from The Turing Centre, home to the Department of Cybernetics it always seemed a damn long way when he was in a hurry. Especially in the pouring rain.

Today he was in a hurry, in fact he was sprinting at full tilt across the quad, his feet slipping on the wet flagstones as a thunderstorm the like of which hadn't been seen in generations boomed and lit up the sky overhead. As a Starfleet officer he knew the importance of keeping fit and healthy and always passed medicals and battle fitness tests with flying colours. But he was an academic and with every passing year he moved further from the uniform size he'd worn as a cadet and found more grey in his currently wet hair that was now a salt and pepper hue, not the jet black it had been in his youth.

He was a busy man, responsible for the allocation of resources in a growing department. More and more people were taking an interest in artificial intelligence thanks to high profile cases in the news and student applications were rising exponentially. He enjoyed his role greatly, it appealed to the control freak in him but his first love was always his research.

He was a rising star in the field of cybernetics when he'd been invited to join a team to assess the android they had found on Omicron Theta. It, as he had called him at the time had made an application to Starfleet Academy. While the constructed being's intelligence was never in question it was the matter of its sentience that was in dispute. He had been of the opinion that the android was not sentient, not due to its cold, dispassionate demeanour as many had thought, but he genuinely believed the suite of software that governed its behaviour was so sophisticated it gave the illusion of life, not life itself. However no-one else agreed and Cadet Data was the first synthetic 'life-form' to attend the academy.

Then he had to admit he became more than a little obsessed, in fact he was consumed with professional jealousy. Just how had someone managed to create a biomechanoid capable of convincing a committee of scientists, scholars and seasoned officers that it was alive? For that was how he saw it, they had been fooled. He studied the research done at the Daystrom Institute shortly after Data had been found. The android had been analysed on many occasions during the six years between its discovery and admission to the academy. In fact analysis was something of an understatement. It had been probed, prodded, scanned, tested and investigated to within an inch of its 'life', a process that the Data Unit, as it was always referred to, had agreed to most amiably. He abandoned his own lines of research, fixating on replicating the work of another, Dr Noonien Soong as it was later discovered to be.

But no-one could tell exactly how the Data Unit worked, it was as though Soong were a modern day Gepetto.

Then to his eternal shame Bruce Maddox took things a step to far. He hatched a plot to dismantle Data. It was a leap of faith, he had no idea exactly how to make him functional after any more than he knew how the 'magic' worked in the first place. Starfleet agreed of course, they found the idea of an army of Datas too intoxicating to resist. Besides, it's not as if Data had a life to risk.

But Bruce had underestimated the strength of the social bonds Data had formed during his years of service. He fought to protect what he believed was his right to continue his work, even taking it as far as a court hearing. He lost.

He didn't lose everything, he gained a friend and over the years Data had provided insights that had proved more invaluable in terms of research as dismantling him would have, Bruce was certain. Yet the ability to create a synthetic life-form still eluded Federation science. Data had come closer than all the cyberneticists in Daystrom put together with the construction of his daughter, Lal but even she had tragically succumbed to cascade failure. Soong had taken the secret to the grave.

After Data's death Bruce had seized the chance to make amends. He simply couldn't let Dr Eden make the same misguided error he'd almost made. B-4 was a living being, not some piece of equipment to be reverse engineered. He fought again in court, this time he won. He was awarded legal guardianship of B-4, a duty he took extremely seriously.

When Dan, his research assistant had called he had been dressing. Once the ensign explained the situation Bruce had wasted no time and headed straight for the door. He was thrilled at the headway Taryn Prior had made with B-4. He'd first noticed her as a bright, extremely young undergraduate and had followed her published papers. He knew she was a proficient, capable cyberneticist but what had impressed him in the last two months was her sense of morality and her compassion, a quality all too rare in the field. He trusted she would always put their charge's wellbeing first. In spite of this he was sprinting. If anything were to happen to B-4 he had to be there, he simply had to. He burst into the control room, water pouring down his face from his soaked hair and dripping on the floor from his drenched uniform.

"How is he?" Maddox asked his protégé urgently.

"I'm not sure." Dan replied, his face a strange mixture of confusion and amusement. "So far he's accessed his knowledgebase, we're running a level three and he appears to be seducing Taryn."

"He what?" Bruce snapped incredulously. "He's never accessed his knowledgeba… Did you just say he was seducing Taryn?"

"He's doing pretty well, I've been picking up pointers." Dan smirked.

Maddox raised an eyebrow and watched as B-4 re-enacted a series of events from, he assumed, Data's life. Mildly amusing yes, but also disturbing, not only by virtue of the content. He noticed Taryn placed her hand on his back, poised to hit the off switch. Part of him wanted her to end the stream of memories and safely shut down B-4 in case he was heading for a major crash, yet the scientist in him wanted to see where this was leading. He was torn.

Then it happened.

"That's Data." Maddox breathed. "That's Data!"

...

"Someone's had their sticky fingers in here." Taryn stated as she changed the angle of a dentist's mirror to get a different view, she had always found that old tools were sometimes the right tools for the job. Lying face down on a surgical table in front of her, his skull open and his positronic net exposed was their android ward. Grabbing another tool she placed it carefully into a space and activated it. "Who was the last engineer to open his cranial plate?"

"Eden." Dan told her.

"Supervised?" she asked.

"Nope." the young ensign replied after swallowing a mouthful of strong coffee. He had refused to leave despite working all night, cybernetics seldom got this exciting and it was his first look inside a Soong-Type positronic net. He put his mug down on the counter and walked back over to the table. Not a good idea to mix coffee and components. It's one of the first things they teach you.

Taryn shook her head. Jason Eden had a lot to answer for. "Data was right. We have three engrams unseated by 2 and 3 and 5 microns, and one appears to be oriented the wrong way. I don't doubt we're going to find some others have been transposed."

"Why didn't B-4 flag this up?" Dan asked.

"Because he's B-4." Maddox stated in a matter of fact way as he turned from a terminal, a padd in his hand and crossed the room. "What's the verdict?"

"I think we should take his entire engram set out and refit them all in the right order for starters. The firmware error should be easy enough to fix. We should have Data's upgraded version somewhere on file. As for the occlusion, our mystery blockage. That's still a mystery, but if we flush his fluid system it may throw some light on the subject."

"That sounds like a plan." Maddox smiled.

"Could Eden have messed up his engrams on purpose?" Dan asked.

"What, to make him fail and get his wicked way with him?" Taryn arched a brow. "I don't think so. It smells of incompetence rather than malevolence."

"Besides it would be traceable." Maddox commented. "Eden knows I'd never hand him over without investigating why he'd gone offline."

"And there are easier ways to knock out his net." Taryn said as she struggled to withdraw an engram with a micro calliper.

"I'd test you on them, but you haven't slept. It wouldn't be fair." Maddox smiled. "I've gone through the diagnostic with a fine-toothed comb and I have plenty of good news some bad news and some worse news."

"Pass me that steriliser please Dan?" Taryn asked, tucking the mirror behind her ear, "Can we start with the good news?"

"He was stable throughout the event. While the over-stimulation from the field was a factor it wasn't the cause so shouldn't need to push him to that level again." Maddox explained. "The event was definitely triggered by him accessing his knowledgebase."

"I can guess the bad news." Taryn said as she replaced a newly cleaned engram within the androids skull.

"What?" Dan asked.

"We can't guarantee…" she paused to examine an engram, "he'll access the knowledgebase again and it's not something we can force." Taryn explained.

"And the really bad news is I can't see a way to get Data to stabilise should he emerge again," Bruce told them, "but I'd be more than happy for a second opinion Taryn." He dropped the padd onto the table between B-4's legs.

"I'll take a look when I'm out of his brain." Taryn told him as she continued to work. "At least if we get these errors sorted they'll both be more comfortable. We can't do much about his emotion chip though."

"I still can't see why they didn't show up on the diagnostics?" Dan asked.

"If the engrams were still making even the slightest contact the diagnostic wouldn't pick it up, even a level three only reads if they are present or blown, but his memory system is so sophisticated it wouldn't use a partially fitted engram, it would ignore it rather than risk corruption." Maddox explained. "The firmware error would only effect Data, his was upgraded and B-4's isn't."

"Sometimes there's no substitute for having a look yourself, although it isn't something I'd ever take lightly." Taryn said as she scanned an engram. "As for the occlusion, that's…"

"…A mystery?" Dan commented. Taryn smirked.

"I'll call up the specs on Data's secondary sub-processor and make a start." Maddox said as he walked back to the terminal and called up the file.

" _Enter security access code."_ the computer chimed.

"Maddox omega delta four nine." Maddox stated, a little surprised to be asked.

 _"Recognize Maddox, Bruce. You do not hold the appropriate clearance level to view this file."_

"Why?" Maddox asked.

 _"This file has been classified under Starfleet Security Order 347-618_ " the computer stated impassively.

"Display Starfleet Security Order 347-618"

 _"That information is classified."_

"Display all files pertaining to Data, Lieutenant Commander." he asked.

" _Enter security access code_." the computer chimed.

"Maddox Omega Delta Four Nine."

" _Recognize Maddox, Bruce. You do not hold the appropriate clearance level to view these files_."

"Has my clearance level changed?" he asked.

" _Negative."_

Maddox paused thoughtfully. He was a calm man, even when he lost his temper he tended to smoulder rather than combust but the computer was trying his patience.

"Display files regarding the android known as B-4." He watched as a list of files scrolled down the screen. "Are any of these files classified?"

" _Negative_."

"Display research files belonging to Maddox, Bruce. Subheading - The Data Unit" he requested. He never had got round to changing the heading.

 _"Enter security access code."_

"I just did!" he shouted.

 _"Unable to comply with your request without a valid security access code."_

"MADDOX OMEGA DELTA FOUR NINE!" Bruce bellowed.

 _"Recognize Maddox, Bruce. You do not hold the appropriate clearance level to view these files."_

A vein began to throb visibly at Bruce Maddox' temple, his jaw muscles were clenching and unclenching rhythmically.

"Computer?" Bruce asked with forced calm. "Why am I unable to view any files on Data, Lieutenant Commander including my OWN DAMNED RESEARCH?"

 _"Any and all files pertaining to Data, Lieutenant Commander (Deceased) have been classified under Starfleet Security Order 347-618."_

"All? Does that include scholarly articles and publications?" Maddox asked, knowing he was clutching at straws.

 _"Affirmative."_

"Problem?" Taryn asked from across the lab.

"You could say that." he replied, "Do you still have your copy of the files I sent you Taryn? The ones on Data you studied on the way to Earth." Maddox asked.

"Yes, why?"

"On isolinear chips or on padd?" Maddox asked.

"Padd, why?" she asked.

"Am I right in thinking padds use the same security protocols as the computer?" Bruce asked rubbing his jaw.

"Yes." Taryn and Dan answered in unison.

"Shit." Bruce said softly, then turned to face them. "We may have hit a snag."

...

The android was lying on the surgical bed with a confused expression on his face.

"Can I get up now?" he asked as he pulled the sensor off his left temple, again.

"Not yet sweetie," Taryn told him, taking the sensor from his hand and returning it to its place.

His engrams were now squeaky clean and in perfect order. They had flushed his fluid system but still failed to find any sign of that damnable blockage and with the firmware upgrade on indefinite hold she had run out of things to do. She'd studied the diagnostic log and while she agreed completely with Bruce's findings she had spotted something. There was a power fluctuation in his positronic net that started at the moment he had begun to sing. Maddox had put it down to a synapse flare but she didn't want to leave any stone unturned. The problem was she couldn't quite pin down its location. She had hotfooted it over to the Institute's Medical Centre to beg a favour and managed to scrounge a portable encephalographic scanner from a sweaty, blushing med-tech who was unable to make eye contact with her. She frequently had this effect on young males and it constantly baffled her. She rarely wore make-up and wasn't beautiful by any means, she didn't even think she was pretty. She saw herself as short and ordinary, with a small but strong nose that she always found a little too square at the tip and an overbite thanks to her clarinet that she'd never got around to getting fixed, not that she was really bothered, she wasn't vain. The term generally used to describe her was 'cute'. She always thought she looked like a turtle, a similarity accentuated by her colouring. Even her eyes, which were probably her best feature were a little too large in her opinion. It wasn't as if her pheromones were the cause of their reaction either as she always kept them clamped down. She strongly suspected it was the reputation of wild green women preceding her that was the cause.

She hoped the machine, which was currently attached to a bored and extremely fidgety android, would give her some idea of what was going on in his neural net at the time of an event, it was certainly more sensitive than the scanners in the lab, but this was by no means certain. Even if she did get a reading he was a unique being and the results may not make any sense but it was worth a try, or so she had thought.

She had tried and failed for three hours to cajole B-4 into accessing his knowledge base. She had come up with every obscure reference she could think of and even made a few things up. Nothing had worked. She was running out of ideas and he was running out of patience

Taryn was patient, she always had been, it had nothing to do with her Vulcan blood. Vulcan children have to learn to kerb their emotions at an early age and she had only had late and limited training. She was occasionally aware that she was capable of almost overwhelming emotions that seethed and roared like the ocean in a storm, especially during passionate encounters or the rare occasions she lost her temper but had never desired to give them up, they were part of what made her Taryn. No, her inner calm came from somewhere else, somewhere human. She craved knowledge like a drug in a way that baffled her alien side of the family. She had to learn how everything works, why everything works, how to make everything keep working and if possible improve it. It was like an innate yearning that drove her and gave her focus. It was why she had dismantled the family replicator when she was seven and to her parents' astonishment, not only had she put it back together again but everything had tasted better.

They had called her a prodigy, she'd already earned a Master's Degree in Cybernetics by the time she was admitted to Starfleet Academy at eighteen. She went on to graduate at twenty-two, however it had never been her intention to make cybernetics her career. It was her hobby, her passion, not a way to earn a living. As an Ensign she had been serving as Ops Officer on a scientific vessel for three years when there had been an incident involving an awareness named Karna. He was built as a planetary defence system by an alien culture who programmed him to feel, they wanted him to understand love and loss so he would truly feel a responsibility to those in his care. When her ship, the USS Faraday, had arrived the society was long dead. Karna had killed them. It wasn't intentional, during a devastating onslaught from a neighbouring system he had inadvertently ignited the atmosphere. Everything organic on his world died in an instant and centuries of that knowledge had driven him insane through grief and isolation. He would not let the survey team leave. He tried to crash the ship on the planet knowing many would die but some would live and he would no longer be alone. He didn't succeed.

Taryn devised a way to shut the vast, tortured intelligence down permanently. It earned her a promotion to Lieutenant and the attention of the Daystrom Institute. She didn't feel she deserved either, she felt like a murderer. Admiral Haftel wanted her on his team at Galor IV and she was transferred. She wasn't given any choice in the matter. At least in the intervening three years he had given permission for her to work towards another degree and had recently promoted her to Lieutenant Commander. Haftel may be lacking in empathy but he was a believer in career development for his staff.

Not that she didn't enjoy her work of course, until the last year it she had found it rewarding intellectually but it was assignments like her current one with B-4 that she lived for. Rehabilitation was always more rewarding than euthanasia or capture.

She often thought of Karna in her darker moments. She had never been able to accept that there hadn't been another option, that she had missed something. There had been something so plaintive about him, she had never met an artificial intelligence with emotional pain so palpable before or since. Intellectually she knew she had done the right thing but it didn't make her role in his demise any easier to live with. In the last three years she had learned it never got any easier the hard way.

Perhaps that was where she was going wrong with B-4. She had to make him want to access his knowledgebase, yearn for it, not trick him into it with word games. She pulled up a stool beside him, sat down and leaned forward resting her folded arms on the biobed beside his shoulder, then rested her chin on her arms.

"Do you know what a poem is?" she asked, her face close to his.

"No." he replied.

"It's like, a cross between a story and a song." she explained, "It's a story that rhymes."

"Like 'The Lorax'?" he asked innocently.

"Yes," she smiled "My Grandad loved poetry."

"Was your Grandad green?" he asked.

"No he was pink." she corrected, "He was human." she smiled. "He liked poetry by a man called Alfred Tennyson, he lived a long time ago. Grandad would read his poems to me so often when I was younger that I still remember some of them. But that was the point, some of the things he wrote about were things that shouldn't be forgotten."

"What sort of things?" he asked.

"Things people did, how they died. So they will be remembered."

"Like Data, he died saving everyone, but I remember him."

She pushed aside a pang of guilt that in retrieving Data this sweet, innocent creature would be lost.

She simply nodded. "Would you like to hear one of Lord Tennyson's poems?"

"Yes."

Bruce had been working on his comprehension, in fact it had been weeks since B-4 was reading Dr Seuss but she wasn't sure he'd understand everything she was going to say, his cognitive levels tended to fluctuate. She just hoped he'd grasp enough to prompt some questions.

 _"Half a league, half a league,_  
 _Half a league onward,_  
 _All in the valley of Death_  
 _Rode the six hundred._  
 _"Forward, the Light Brigade!_  
 _"Charge for the guns!" he said:_  
 _Into the valley of Death_  
 _Rode the six hundred._

 _"Forward, the Light Brigade!"_  
 _Was there a man dismay'd?_  
 _Not tho' the soldier knew_  
 _Someone had blunder'd:_  
 _Theirs not to make reply,_  
 _Theirs not to reason why,_  
 _Theirs but to do and die:_  
 _Into the valley of Death_  
 _Rode the six hundred._

 _Cannon to right of them,_  
 _Cannon to left of them,_  
 _Cannon in front of them_  
 _Volley'd and thunder'd;_  
 _Storm'd at with shot and shell,_  
 _Boldly they rode and well,_  
 _Into the jaws of Death,_  
 _Into the mouth of Hell_  
 _Rode the six hundred._

 _Flash'd all their sabres bare,_  
 _Flash'd as they turn'd in air,_  
 _Sabring the gunners there,_  
 _Charging an army, while_  
 _All the world wonder'd:_  
 _Plunged in the battery-smoke_  
 _Right thro' the line they broke;_  
 _Cossack and Russian_  
 _Reel'd from the sabre stroke_  
 _Shatter'd and sunder'd._  
 _Then they rode back, but not_  
 _Not the six hundred._

 _Cannon to right of them,_  
 _Cannon to left of them,_  
 _Cannon behind them_  
 _Volley'd and thunder'd;_  
 _Storm'd at with shot and shell,_  
 _While horse and hero fell,_  
 _They that had fought so well_  
 _Came thro' the jaws of Death_  
 _Back from the mouth of Hell,_  
 _All that was left of them,_  
 _Left of six hundred._

 _When can their glory fade?_  
 _O the wild charge they made!_  
 _All the world wondered._  
 _Honor the charge they made,_  
 _Honor the Light Brigade,_  
 _Noble six hundred."_

B-4 blinked slowly and looked at the ceiling, a few moments passed.

"How many of them died?" he asked softly.

"I don't know." she whispered. Her choice of poem wasn't random. Data had seen battle, Data had lost comrades. She hoped on some unconscious level B-4 was aware of those experiences.

"Accessing…"

...

"Come in!" he said brightly, and raised his eyes from the terminal he was examining. "Ah, if it isn't the Android Whisperer." The Doctor said, "I'm surprised you bothered to visit yourself and didn't send one of your flying monkeys."

Taryn got the reference, she'd heard similar many times before with far more malice. Following their return to the Alpha Quadrant Voyager's EMH had been appointed as Chief Medical Officer at the Daystrom Medical Centre. It wasn't as exciting as roaming the Delta Quadrant, but with a constant stream of faculty and students and cutting edge research carrying the frequent risk of injury he was kept occupied and the position gave him access to the extensive laboratories on campus for his personal research. Unfortunately the assignment was soured slightly as it had come as part of a Mexican stand-off. Starfleet wanted to replicate his mobile emitter and he had refused to relinquish it. They had tried to claim it was materiel, much as they had with Data but he had threatened to kick up a merry stink and had Admiral Janeway on side. He didn't want to stand in the way of progress but his freedom was at stake, his individuality. Eventually he agreed to allow an engineer he trusted access to the emitter under certain terms, mainly that they didn't destroy or damage it, in return for a sought after position with perks that would keep him nearby.

"I come seeking an audience with Oz the Great and Powerful." she told him. "I'd like your opinion on something." She handed him a padd.

"It's an encephalogram." he told her, and handed the padd straight back. At her icy expression he took the padd again. "It clearly isn't human," he said as he reclined in his seat and crossed one leg over the other, grasping his ankle. "Or any other species I recognise." He looked up at her "Your android I take it?" At her nod he added, "I'd better have a look at him."

"Why?" she asked.

"He's epileptic." At her incredulous stare he added, "This graph clearly indicates a complex partial seizure."

...

"I could get twenty years for this Taz."

"Only if you get caught Cad." Taryn smiled. "You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't really important." She watched her brother run his hand through a mop of curly hair. He was thin, almost painfully so but for him that was normal. Facially he took after their father with his long, almost Roman nose but his face was somehow softer and did not carry the confidence that their father bore. She often thought it was the cheeky smile her brother perpetually wore that made the difference in their aspect. Not that he was smiling at the moment. "I can create the fake files, all you have to do…"

"Is hack the core, decrypt the security code for a set of highly classified files, create a dummy account with the right protocols, edit the file names and every reference to the word 'Data' and I'll have to do it manually because it's a common word. Then copy it all across to the new files. All without getting my arse slung in jail." he paused, "Face it Taryn. I'm good but I'm not that good."

"I know." Taryn sighed and looked at the ceiling. "I can't blame you for saying no. I knew it was a Hail Mary." She hated asking for favours, but with her brother working in the Cryptography and Ciphers section of Memory Alpha, the Federation's data repository she had to ask. She also knew he was a tenacious gossip hound who had a habit of finding out information above his clearance level, not by hacking but by charm. Cadfael had come a long way from the skinny boy with a fixation on the contents of his nose. He was a skinny man with a fixation on secrets.

"Have you tried the Enterprise?" he asked.

"Maddox asked them." she replied, "They purged all his records six months ago and they never kept an isolinear back up. Why would they? No-one does anymore."

Her brother drummed his fingers on the edge of his console, it was a trait they shared. A resigned expression came over his face.

"What you didn't hear from me is five other researchers have submitted information requests on Security Order 347-618 this morning. You aren't the only ones locked out of your research."

"Really?" Taryn asked in disbelief.

"But of course, I couldn't possibly give you their names, even over a secure channel like this." As he spoke he keyed something into his console and winked at her. The list appeared on her terminal. "Interesting?"

"Very." she commented, reading the list. "What do you know about Security Order 347-618?"

"Nothing, no-one knows, but it's all anyone's talking about around here. Rumour has it it's come from on high and we're talking God's bollocks high and the guys in Classified Files have looked puce with worry all day."

On the monitor she noticed The Doctor's arrival. "I'm going to have to go but Cadfael, you're a star. To think I thought you were an arsehole when we were growing up."

"To be fair, I was an arsehole." he admitted. "Take care Shorty. If I hear any more I'll let you know."

"Love you Cad." she smiled and closed the channel. She quickly left the Control room and returned to the lab where The Doctor was beginning to examine B-4 who was sitting on the edge of the surgical biobed. He was running the scanner of a medical tricorder over the android's upper body, made all the more difficult by the fact B-4 kept following it with his face to study it at close range.

"Keep still please." The Doctor requested tersely. "I can't examine you if you won't sit still!"

"Did I do something wrong?" B-4 asked Taryn, his eyes wide.

"No." she replied gently, grabbing another tricorder and giving him the hand scanner from it. "We just need you to try and be still for The Doctor." She cast a warning glance at the hologram. She had warned him B-4 was no ordinary patient.

"What is your name?" B-4 asked, turning the item over in his hands, inspecting it carefully.

"I'm The Doctor." he replied.

"I know, but what is your name?" B-4 repeated.

"I don't have a name, everyone just calls me 'The Doctor'."

B-4 frowned. "Everyone has a name, do they not?"

"I'm an Emergency Medical Hologram, I was never given a name."

"What is an Emergency Medical Hologram?"

"It means The Doctor is special, he's an artificial being like you." Taryn stepped in and explained. The Doctor wasn't exactly renowned for his patience and bed-side manner, although everyone admitted he had made huge strides in that department from his base programming and despite the all the steps B-4 had made he could be trying at times.

"And Data?" B-4 asked.

"Yes, but The Doctor was made in a different way." Taryn told him.

"Why did they build him with a shiny head?" B-4 asked her with a cock of his head. Taryn stifled a laugh but couldn't prevent the loud snort which emanated from her nose.

"I was made to resemble my creator. Dr. Zimmerman." The Doctor told him, glaring at Taryn. "He has a... shiny head." he added tiredly.

"I look like my creator too, Dr. Soong, but he was pink not golden." B-4 said. "Data called him our father." Taryn smiled proudly. Two months ago B-4 wouldn't have made that connection, for that matter he hadn't understood what an artificial being was, let alone that he was one.

"Then we have something in common." The Doctor said brightly. He put down his tricorder and picked up another instrument. B-4 eyed it warily. "This won't hurt a bit." The Doctor told him. "See." He took Taryn's chin, held the three-pronged probe to her temple and activated it.

"I can't feel a thing." Taryn reassured B-4 and smiled, finally The Doctor was getting it. He was examining a 100kg child.

The Doctor's examination was thorough and exhaustive and B-4 was currently sitting cross-legged on the floor taking his own bio readings with a tricorder. The two officers had moved to a corner and were speaking in hushed tones.

"I'd really like to observe the neurological event in the imaging chamber they have over in Biosciences." The Doctor advised her, "Would he tolerate that?"

Taryn's eyes widened. "Hard to say. He's never refused to do anything we've asked of him but I don't know whether he'd keep still enough. You saw for yourself what a fidget he can be with new experiences." She rubbed at her temple. "I really wouldn't want to disable his motor functions, he's found it unsettling in the past." She chewed her lower lip. "I can't make any promises as to how long it would take for me to trigger it either. He's a learning machine now and I can't use the same trick twice."

"I really wouldn't feel comfortable making any recommendations without it." The Doctor told her, "It's an unusual situation to actually want to trigger seizures in a patient and as a doctor I have to ensure it isn't detrimental to his… health."

"I understand completely." she said, "We feel the same way."

"We could perform the test at night. It would give us more time." he suggested.

"Not tonight though." Taryn decided. "He had an exciting night last night, two seizures, his first ever medical exam and the android equivalent of open brain surgery. I think that's enough drama for one day. I'll also need to check with Captain Maddox that he's happy for the scan to go ahead, he's not in the building at the moment."

"We can discuss it further tomorrow." The Doctor told her. "I'll see you again soon." he told B-4 brightly as he turned to leave.

"Good-bye Doctor." B-4 said, looking up from the tricorder.

"Thank you Doctor." Taryn said and touched the holograms arm warmly.

...

Maddox' mood had gone from bad to worse. After he had interrupted his call with the Administrator to speak with Captain Picard the infuriating woman had refused to return his calls. He wanted answers and he wanted them now so he had stormed over to the Admin Center to give her a piece of his mind. Why would the Security Council classify all information on Data? It just didn't make sense.

The Admin Woman (he couldn't even bring himself to call her by name he was so angry) had smiled sweetly and handed him a padd containing and 83 question form. An SC9/82 Declassification of Records Request Form to be precise, then she had told him he needed to supply a form for each individual file. When he asked how long the process would take she advised him it would be at least eighteen weeks and even then they would most likely refuse.

That was when the red mist had descended.

He was uncertain as to his exact words but he was sure he got the terms 'petty bureaucrat', 'fascist state', 'cold-hearted bitch' and 'evil, twisted harpy' in there somewhere. He suspected he also pointed out all the reasons why she was his ex-wife and may have compared her to Adolf Hitler.

Not his finest hour by any means.

In the five years of their marriage she'd never understood what his research meant to him. Decades of work and the bastards had taken it away without so much as a please, thank you or kiss my ass and she sat there smiling?

If his uniform had pockets his hands would be thrust into them, but he had to be content with clenching his fists as he walked back to the Turing Centre. He had an epileptic android with two personalities and he had no idea how he would even start to help either of them.

Picard was also less than thrilled at finding his officer's records had been sealed, it was news to him too. Bruce had been crestfallen on hearing they had purged Data's personal files and did not have a remote copy, however the Captain had offered him the next best thing.

Geordi La Forge.

Bruce had jumped at the chance of course, no-one knew Data's systems like La Forge and they could certainly use an extra pair of hands. He stalked past the lab and into his office, he needed time to stew before he faced everyone.

It wasn't long before his door chimed.

"Come in." he mumbled. It was Taryn.

"I take it things didn't go well at the Admin Centre." she said on seeing his expression. "Mitchell, Zimmerman, Ootani, Barclay, and Sheridan."

"What about them?" he asked.

"You didn't hear it from me, but their research has been classified too."

Bruce looked at her and blinked.

"Have a seat." he said distractedly. "Isn't Barclay working on The Doctor's mobile emitter?"

"As far as I know." she replied.

"Ootani? Is he the Zakdorn who writes heuristic software?"

She nodded, "Sheridan designs memory cores. Mitchell is a cyberneticist."

"Yes, but he makes biosynthetic prosthetics not androids. Zimmerman? I think he's been working on the Emergency Command Hologram." Bruce scratched his head. "What does any of this have to do with Data?"

"There has to be some commonality." she suggested, "They're all in this system, either here at Daystrom or the Jupiter Station."

"I thought Sheridan was at the Annex?" he asked.

"No she transferred here two months ago." Taryn told him, "We travelled here on the same ship. She had a difference of opinion with Haftel."

"Could that be it?" Bruce asked. "That these are all fields not covered by other staff at the Annex? Haftel's always wanted to get his hands on a Soong-Type." Maddox sat forward and steepled his fingers. "Does Haftel have any pull with the Security Council?"

"I think you're getting paranoid Bruce. Admiral Haftel doesn't need to classify research to use it, he'd just help himself. He doesn't seem to have friends at all, let alone friends on the Security Council." She paused for a moment. "Saying that, he's like Teflon, nothing sticks to him." A few moments passed as they considered the situation.

"Taryn, what's your clearance level." Bruce asked.

"Much lower than yours." she smirked.

"Yes, but you have Annex clearance."

Taryn shifted in her seat. She turned the terminal on Maddox' desk to face her.

"Computer, display all records on Lieutenant Commander Data."

"Enter security access code." the computer chimed.

"Prior lambda pii six eight."

"Recognize Prior, Taryn B." the computer responded. Taryn rolled her eyes. She turned the screen back to reveal Data's records.

"Haftel." Maddox breathed and rubbed his forehead. "Taryn, I'm sorry I have to ask, but where do your loyalties lie?"

"Isn't that obvious?" she asked. "With B-4. With Data. Certainly not with Haftel." she assured him.

Bruce nodded. "For now we keep this between us."

...

Geordi La forge was packing his bags when his door chimed.

"Come in." he answered.

"Geordi, is what I just heard true?" Beverly asked him as she walked into the bedroom or more correctly, she waddled. She sat on the bed beside his case.

"It looks that way." he replied, "Saw it myself on the screen and I'm not even sure I believe it."

"It was really him?" she asked, "Not a flashback?"

"He even asked what had happened to Spot." He stopped packing and sat next to her. "It's not a sure thing. Data emerged but they're a long way from getting him back and keeping him here."

She rubbed his shoulder, "I'm glad you're going."

"How could I not?" Geordi asked her, "I failed him. I took B-4 to bits, put him in boxes and sent him off like he was garbage and all that time Data was there." He rubbed at his temple. "I failed both of them."

"Nobody will see it like that Geordi," she told him, "Data wouldn't see it like that." He drew a deep breath and patted her hand. She sighed, "I'll leave you to pack, but I may need a hand getting up if you wouldn't mind." She rubbed her belly.

"Do you want me to fetch an anti-grav unit?" He laughed as he helped the heavily pregnant doctor to her feet.

"You just go and be sure to bring him back, because much as I loved him I really don't want to have to saddle this kid with the name 'Data'."

 _References_

 _The Charge of the Light Brigade – Alfred Lord Tennyson (In public domain)_

 _The Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum, Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

It didn't take long for Geordi to meet the team and get up to speed. In fact it only took the time needed to upgrade some of B-4's firmware from records Bruce had found somewhere for Geordi to feel like he'd been working with them for months. He'd always thought Maddox was a bit of a stuffed shirt but he'd selected this team as much for their temperaments as for their skills and had created a relaxed atmosphere in the lab. They almost reminded him of a family, Bruce as the serious father, Dan was the annoying kid brother and Ruxia was the big sister. That left Taryn, Geordi was surprised by her the most. They'd looked up her personnel file as soon as they left the subspace conference with Maddox as Picard and he had been intrigued. She was clearly an excellent scientist but was also a surprisingly well-rounded officer. Her service record was as exemplary as you would ever hope to see and included a number of citations but both men could see one glaring problem with the officer. She was on Admiral Haftel's staff. Geordi loathed the man, he had arbitrarily declared Data an unfit father and tried to take Lal to be appropriately socialised by the experts at Galor IV as he had put it. She had been literally mortified at the idea of being taken away from Data and this led to a terminal cascade failure. Haftel may as well have ionised the sweet girl's positronic net with a phaser, and this Taryn Prior was one of his favoured experts? Although they knew it was before the young officer's time, both he and the Captain couldn't help but feel distrust. That changed as soon as he saw her with B-4. She hadn't forced him to develop, she had nurtured him. She was both his staunchest advocate and his friend, she was like a mother to him.

It was now late in the evening and he was standing in the medical centre with his arms folded, watching the monitor with The Doctor while B-4 was in the chamber. Taryn had been right, he wouldn't settle, he didn't like the chamber at all, but rather than disable his motor functions and leave him helpless and distressed Taryn had squeezed in and was sitting cross-legged and hunched over at his feet which she was massaging while singing to him in a soft contralto voice. Then she stopped mid verse and told him she didn't remember the rest. He simply couldn't resist looking up the song.

Then it came, a stream of one-sided conversations remembered in perfect clarity and then…

"Why do I appear to be in an imaging chamber?" Data asked, then looked down at his feet.

"Keep still Data." Taryn warned.

"Data?" Geordi's voice echoed in the chamber.

"Geordi?"

"How are you Data?" his friend asked, happiness shining through his voice.

"I appear to be experiencing a disjointed sequence of events but otherwise I am fine. How are you?"

"All the better for speaking to you my friend."

"Commander Prior informed me that I was destroyed."

"Yeah, that was kinda crappy for everyone." Geordi said, knowing it was an epic understatement.

"I am sorry Geordi."

"Don't be sorry, you saved the day. You were a hero."

"Nonetheless, I am sure it was not my intention to cause anyone distress."

"By the way, Reg Barclay has Spot. I called him, he's going to bring her to see you." Geordi told him.

"Thank you Geordi, I have been concerned for …How much longer do I have to stay in here?" B-4 asked softly.

"I think we're almost done." Taryn told him sadly and rubbed his ankle.

"I'm sorry you didn't get longer with him." Taryn said later in the Control Room after they had walked B-4 back to the lab.

"Part of me thought it wasn't going to be real." Geordi explained, "There were so many times after Data died when I really thought I was reaching him within B-4 but I wasn't." he smiled, "and then I see on screen that this crazy girl has not only got B-4 to catch a falling padd when I'd spent a month bouncing a beach ball off his face but she's actually speaking to Data. I have to admit I had my doubts." he sighed. "God I've missed him."

"You didn't fail them, Geordi." Taryn told him.

"Are you empathic?" he asked. "Telepathic?"

"No, it's been written all over your face all day." she told him as she hoisted herself onto the counter. "I get to spend all day every day in the lab with him and I wouldn't have got B-4 half this far without the rest of the team. You had a ship to look after, a ship in pieces that needed nursing all the way into spacedock. You had other priorities and you still made time to work with him. No-one could ever doubt your devotion. As for Data," she looked Geordi straight in the eye. "no one was more surprised than me. I thought the development process might cause some aspects of the matrices latent personalities to break through but… nothing like this."

"Speaking of your development process…"

"I must be out of my frigging mind?" she anticipated.

"Well, now you mention it," he grinned, "but I was going to say thank you. If you hadn't tried to help B-4 we would never have got this far."

She smiled shyly. "It's been my pleasure."

He looked at her with his steely blue cybernetic eyes. "Do you really think we can bring him back?"

Taryn looked at the ceiling and exhaled slowly.

"I think we will find a way, yes." she said slowly, "I'm just not certain Data will like the price any more than I do."

…

"I have made a thorough examination of B-4's neurological structure and I can now confirm my original diagnosis. He is suffering from complex partial seizures or at least, the electrical activity in his neural net is emulating that condition." The Doctor explained.

La Forge scratched his head, now he really had heard it all. The meeting was taking place in Maddox' office with the team apart from Dan, who had volunteered to stay in the lab with B-4.

"We have been unable to find any degradation of his positronic matrix from an engineering point of view Doctor. Are these neurological events causing him any harm?" Ruxia Dar asked.

"As far as I can tell B-4 is not being harmed at all." The Doctor explained. "In organic beings the damage caused by seizures, particularly the tonic-clonic variety is usually caused by loss of airway patency and subsequent hypoxia, lack of oxygen to the brain if you will. B-4 does not require oxygen to function and is therefore immune, however he is so complex I ran a full battery of tests to be certain."

"Psychologically he is unaffected too." Taryn explained. "He is blissfully unaware of what happens during an event and doesn't appear to be bothered by the gaps in his memory record. I doubt that that will continue though as he is becoming increasingly aware of his internal clock. In fact, yesterday he reminded me it was the time I usually stop for lunch."

"So is he continuing to develop without the field and without the intensive cognitive stimulation?" Bruce asked.

"I believe he has crossed a threshold and is beginning to form connections he was unable to before, but this is more that he's learned a new trick and is practicing it," Taryn informed him, "and practice makes perfect."

Bruce nodded, "Doctor, since the start of this project Commander Prior has been petitioning me to get a medical advisor on board as B-4's functions mimic human physiology so closely. I was wondering if you would be interested in accepting the position? B-4 seems to have taken to you and we will happily fit around your other duties."

"Surely Dr Crusher has far more experience?" The Doctor commented.

"Dr Crusher is… indisposed." Geordi explained with a grin. "More than eight months indisposed in fact."

"In that case I'd be happy to free up some time to save one of Starfleet's finest from positronic oblivion."

"Excellent." Bruce smiled. "So are we any closer to finding a way to stabilise Data? Has anyone come up with any ideas?"

"Unfortunately I have been unable to determine an area of his positronic net that could be stimulated to force out Data's persona." The Doctor explained.

"This morning Geordi and I found that part of B-4's memory recall subroutine has been scrambled, probably during Data's memory transfer. The problem will have remained dormant until we got him to the cognitive level to use that part of his programming." Taryn intoned, "If it is the cause it is a software problem and no amount of neural stimulation will work."

"I've been doubting that a hardware trigger is the panacea we've been hoping for anyway. At best I think we'd only get an android that rotated between personalities with erratic behaviour in between." Ruxia stated.

"There is one other problem." Geordi said and turned to Taryn.

"Are we certain we're doing the right thing here?" Taryn asked. "We're all so focussed on retrieving Data we aren't even considering the effect it will have on B-4. When we found out last week that Data's persona was attempting to subsume B-4's that was one thing, it was at least an… organic process but now we are talking about actively replacing one of them with the other as if B-4 has no rights."

"She's right." The Doctor added.

"Is this how you feel Geordi?" Bruce asked, leaning forward and interlocking his fingers.

"I want Data back." Geordi said plainly, "But I know that this is something Data will find hard to accept."

"So what do we do?" Bruce said. "So far every time B-4 has used his recall function Data has appeared. We've no reason to think that will stop. He can function indefinitely like that but as he develops it will have a catastrophic effect on his ability to socialise."

"Can the error be fixed?" The Doctor asked.

"Certainly." Taryn replied.

"But we'd lose Data." Geordi added. "Forever."

"Not necessarily." Taryn argued. "He was already trying to emerge a week ago, before the first neurological event."

"So we could choose B-4 only to lose him anyway?" The Doctor asked.

"We have no way of knowing who we'd end up with or how stable they would be." Ruxia pointed out.

"If we do nothing we could potentially end up with another Lore." Taryn warned.

"It seems our moral dilemma is the least of our worries." Maddox intoned.

"We could explore all the options then ask Data how he wishes to proceed?" The Doctor suggested. "He does have a stake in this and we do have access to him now."

"He might come up with something we haven't thought of." Taryn said, "He's the only one here who's successfully built another android, he's the expert, not us. We'd be daft if we didn't ask for his help."

"Lal failed." Ruxia pointed out.

"You know my theory on that Ruxia." Taryn said, "I don't believe for a second her construction was at fault."

"Nor do I." Geordi added.

"You know who I blame." Bruce added.

"Lal?" The Doctor asked.

"It's a long story Doc." Geordi explained.

 _"_ _Ashby to Captain Maddox."_

"Go ahead Dan." Maddox replied.

"B-4 is accessing, he did it on his own."

…

They all entered the lab to find a bemused Dan watching their android sitting cross-legged on the floor singing.

"What on Earth is that he's singing?" The Doctor asked.

"Life forms, you tiny little life forms, you precious little life forms, where are you?"

"I have no idea, but he sings it to himself a lot." Dan replied.

"When we first fitted his emotion chip Data got a little… quirky for a while." Geordi explained.

Taryn arched a brow and then frowned as the android repeated the song again and again clicking his fingers and slapping his palm into his hand at the end of each verse.

"He should be moving on." she said worriedly and went to sit down on his right side. "B-4?" she asked "Data?" She gently grasped his forearm to try and pull him out of his trance.

He lifted his head and gasped, his face an image of rapt pleasure, then he turned to her.

"Ooh" he sighed breathily gazing into Taryn's horrified eyes.

"What the hell did you do to him?" The Doctor asked then added as an aside, "I suppose you can take the girl out of Orion…"

"I only touched his arm!" Taryn protested.

"That would be where the Borg Queen put living tissue." Geordi explained and for a moment thought Taryn had turned even greener than usual.

"Darling, you remain as aesthetically pleasing as the first day we met. I believe I am the most fortunate sentient in this sector of the galaxy!"

"Borg Queen again?" The Doctor asked.

"God, I hope not." La Forge replied.

"If you had an off switch, Doctor, would you not keep it secret?" Data asked quietly. "Spot. This is down. Down is good. This is up. Up is no." With a twitch the memories ceased and Data looked around and blinked.

"Commander Prior, why am I sitting on the floor?" Data asked.

"Hi Data." Geordi smiled. Data stood and walked over to his friend.

"Hello Geordi." Data replied and looked bemused when La Forge pulled him into a bear hug and slapped him firmly on the back several times.

"Damn it's good to see you Data."

"It is good to see you too Geordi." Data replied. "Captain Maddox." he nodded in greeting.

"Hello Data," Bruce responded and shook Data's hand. "You've met Taryn I know but this is Lieutenant Ruxia Dar, Ensign Daniel Ashby and The Doctor."

"Ah, the EMH Mark-1 from Voyager, a pleasure to meet you." Data said as he shook hands with the officers.

"You too Commander." The Doctor replied cordially.

"Data, we don't know how much time we have and there's a lot to explain." Geordi told him. "Captain Maddox and his team have been working with B-4 to continue the efforts to improve his cognitive skills."

"I am glad to hear that Geordi, I always believed him to have potential." Data replied.

"He has a corruption in his memory recall subroutine that causes him to trigger your latent matrix within his memory every time he accesses his knowledgebase." Taryn explained. "That's why your experiences are so disjointed at the moment."

"That problem should not be difficult to overcome." Data frowned, "Why have you not resolved it?"

"Because of you, you idiot!" Geordi snapped. "We're trying to save you."

"Were I to be recovered, what would happen to B-4?" At their guilty looks he added, "Geordi, I will not take my brother's life."

"But Data." Geordi argued.

"No, Geordi. Repair the fault."

"But that will as good as kill you." Geordi challenged.

"I am already dead." Data reasoned, "I have lived my life and B-4 deserves his. Geordi," he placed his hand on his own chest, "this is just an echo of what I was."

"It's not that simple Data." Taryn stated, "Before this problem became apparent there were indications that your ego was beginning to take over. Even if we replace the damaged code there's the distinct possibility you will replace B-4 anyway."

"Then you must delete me from his memory." Data countered.

"We can't." Maddox stated then turned to Taryn, "Show him." She walked over to one of the consoles and keyed in a sequence. The three dimensional matrix appeared in the centre of the room. "We can't find you in amongst that." Maddox explained and pointed at the holographic image in all its horrific glory.

Data walked towards the revolving construct, its light throwing patterns across his face which, had he been human, all the blood would have drained from.

"The transfer." he whispered, "I did this to him."

"Data, we don't know what to do for the best." Taryn told him sadly, "If we can find a way to stabilise you as you are now the odds are good you'll be intact. If we wait too long we can't make that assertion." She inhaled deeply through her nose. "If it's what you really want I'm willing to attempt to ionise your part of the matrix but it would be no more than my educated guesswork and I'd most likely lobotomise B-4 in the process."

"That would still leave Lal." Data swallowed, "And Lore."

"I'd have to ionise Lore as well." Taryn told him. "But the more I destroy the greater the risk to the stability of B-4."

Data turned to Geordi, "I believe the correct phrase for you to say would be 'I told you so'. You always said that incorporating Lore's knowledge into my net was a mistake."

"I'm not getting any satisfaction from being right my friend." Geordi intoned.

Data looked at Taryn earnestly. "I wish you to go ahead with the procedure." at her expression he added. "I trust your capabilities. Your educated guess represents B-4's best chance."

"Data, if we're going to get the best possible outcome here we're going to need your help." Geordi reasoned.

"We've learned more about Dr Soong's positronic brain in the last seventy-two hours than we have in decades." Maddox told him. "For no other reason than that you should let us continue our research."

Data looked at Taryn. "I'm not ready to accept there isn't another option for both of you. Not yet." Taryn told him. "This solution isn't going anywhere."

Data looked at each of them in turn until his shoulders took on a softer posture.

"I will assist on condition the focus of this investigation will be to ensure the best outcome for B-4, not myself. I will need your word you will not do anything contrary to his interests in my absence."

"Of course Data." Geordi assured him.

"He's safe with us." Taryn promised.

"Perhaps you should allow me to see what you have thus far." Data conceded.

…

"Commander Prior?" Data asked, looking up from the terminal.

"Yes Data," she replied. She was taking advantage of a quiet moment and servicing a large piece of scanning equipment in the lab.

"Do you have access to information regarding the Holotronic Matrix Scanner?"

"That depends on what you want to know. You should be able to view the specs and operating manual from that terminal." Taryn replied distractedly.

"I am interested in reading the development notes." he asked.

"You'll need to speak to Barclay, the Holotronic was his baby." she explained.

"Reg Barclay?"

"Yes, he'll be here later anyway, he's bringing Spot." she replied.

"If I am not… present. Could you ask him some questions on my behalf?"

"That may be difficult, he won't speak to me." Taryn admitted.

Data frowned. "Why?"

"He's shy, I'm green. He finds me intimidating." She smiled a shy smile. "It's a pity. I quite like him."

His eyes widened with surprise. "Like him as in find him attractive?"

"He's very clever," she explained, "and shyness can be very alluring."

"It can?" Data asked

"Oh yes." She smirked.

"Is that an Orion trait?"

"No." she replied placidly.

"Hmm." Data tilted his head. "Would you like me to speak to him on your behalf?"

"God no!" she exclaimed. "For someone programmed in multiple techniques you don't know much about women." She headed for the door. "Leave your questions on a padd, I'll see he gets them." She passed Geordi on the way out.

"I believe I have offended Commander Prior." Data told him. "She told me she finds Mr Barclay's shyness and intelligence attractive, but when I offered to speak to him for her…"

Geordi laughed, "I really don't think she needs any help with her love life Data. He may be shy, but she certainly isn't. If she was that interested she'd ask him herself."

"Perhaps I should apologize." Data stated.

"Nah, forget it." Geordi told him, "She'll be fine. She'll know you meant well. Find anything?"

"Perhaps. I have been looking at the specifications on the Holotronic Imaging Scanner, it is a most innovative device."

"Innovative and specialist, as far as I know there are only three in existence."

"Four sir." Barclay said as he entered the lab with a cat carrier. "We built four."

"Hello Spot." Data said as he lifted her out of the carrier. She nuzzled his face affectionately. "Thank you for taking care of her Mr Barclay."

"She missed you after…" Geordi left the sentence unfinished. "We were worried, she lost a lot of weight but she looks fine now." He rubbed her behind the ear.

"It took a while but she got her appetite back eventually." Barclay smiled. "I was thinking she could stay here in the lab. I'm sure Captain Maddox wouldn't mind."

"No." Data said, "She should go home with you. I do not know how long I will be here."

"Data…" Geordi said despairingly. The door opened and Taryn entered the room.

"Commander Barclay." She smiled with a nod.

"Um, g…good m…morning Commander." Barclay stammered, blushing.

"Hello, you must be Spot." Taryn cooed and stroked the cats head.

"I was just saying that Mr Barclay should take her home with him." Data told her. "I would not want her to become too attached to me only to pine again."

"She'd be very therapeutic for B-4." Taryn advised, watching Spot scent marking Data's face with her cheeks, purring loudly.

"Besides, she seems pretty attached already." Geordi smiled.

"I am aware of what you are both trying to do." Data informed them, "You are endeavouring to motivate me to change my decision. While I have agreed to assist you in considering any and all options I still do not believe you will succeed and you will have to accept that." He lifted Spot to look her in the face. "Spot can stay, however."

"I'll go and replicate a bowl of water and a litter tray." Taryn said, "I think Captain Maddox was hoping for a word with you before you leave Commander."

"I..I…I'll be sure to d…drop by his office." Barclay said, nervously rubbing the back of his head.

As she turned to leave she shot Data a look, one he didn't fully understand.

"Commander, if you have the time I have some questions regarding the Holotronic Matrix Scanner." Data asked.

"I have time, what would you like to know?" Barclay replied.

"While you were designing it did you explore the possibility of making it work in real-time?"

"That wouldn't be possible." Barclay advised him, and began his habit of nervously speaking with his hands. "The data set involved is so large that most scans take at least two hours to render. The scanner was originally designed to take a snapshot of a holographic matrix as a diagnostic tool to determine if a hologram has become sentient, like The Doctor or Moriarty, but we never got definitive results. But we did find it can be used to assess the stability of a holographic construct and can be used for identification purposes regardless of the hologram's appearance. The fact that it works on some other forms of artificial life such as yourself was a happy accident."

"Where are you going with this Data?" Geordi asked.

"I am wondering if there is a way to obtain an image that will clearly indicate the active part of the matrix in my, his neural net." he corrected himself. "If we can find a way to differentiate between the four android personalities it would be a first step in stabilising or deleting one." Data explained.

"Let's go back a stage Data," Geordi suggested, "If each of the four matrices are created from the memories and experiences of each android, how do you know whose memories you're accessing?"

"I do not understand." he said innocently.

"I mean, if you look up one of Lal's experiences, what distinguishes it from one of Lore's?" Geordi asked.

"Who is Lal?" Who is Lore?" B-4 asked. "Hello Spot." Distracted, from his questions he began to play with the cat.

Geordi tapped his combadge and indicted for Barclay to step aside with him. "La Forge to Prior."

 _"_ _Prior here."_

"He dropped out again, just when things were getting interesting." Geordi told her.

 _"_ _On my way."_

"Does this happen a lot?" Barclay asked.

"Yeah, we get Data for anything from a minute to an hour or so if we're lucky. Taryn's pretty good at getting B-4 to trigger an event but if we do it too often Data objects. He's worried he's usurping B-4's life."

"Is that what he meant by not knowing how long he'd be here and talking about a decision?"

Geordi nodded, "Data wants us to repair the error in B-4's recall code and cut him off, then delete him."

Taryn entered and spoke quietly to B-4 for a few minutes then joined the two officers with her hands clasped behind her back.

"He wants to play with the cat, I don't think we'll get Data back today." she explained.

"I should probably find Captain Maddox Commander, but if I think of anything that may help I'll let you know." Barclay said, carefully addressing Geordi.

"Thanks Reg." Geordi smiled and clasped him on the shoulder. Reg forced an awkward smile at Taryn and left the lab rapidly.

"You know, you really should tell him you like him." Geordi teased.

"If I did he'd probably have some kind of infarction." Taryn sighed.

"So that's your type huh?"

"What, tall, intelligent and shy? Not exclusively. I sometimes go for pale and interesting." she replied. "Come up with anything?"

"Maybe," he replied, "What do you know about how Soong-type androids store experiences?"

"I believe it's what makes them alive but opinions differ."

"Go on."

"If we were to copy the neural matrix in B-4 to a computer core it would read like a very boring diary and it would be very difficult to tell who did what. But somehow Data was able to distinguish between his own experiences, Lal's, Lore's and four hundred and eleven colonists. I don't know about you, but I have trouble remembering what I ate for lunch two days ago. There is something… vital about the way they etch their memory onto their engrams, something that gives them consciousness. Something we can't work out how to repeat."

"Data is thinking that telling the four matrices apart is the first step. But the matrix is only a collection of experiences. I have a hunch that the key is in how he tells his memories apart."

Taryn paused thoughtfully. "Sounds plausible, but the finest minds in cybernetics have been working on this topic for forty-two years and they've all concluded that the only way to find out is to contact Noonien Soong via Ouija board. I even know of one who's tried it."

"Yeah, but have any of them actually asked Data how he does it?"

"Can you tell me how you store your memories?" Taryn asked. "I don't mean the biochemical principle. Are you aware of how it happens as it happens?"

"Fair point." Geordi conceded, "But it has to be worth a try." They stood for a moment watching B-4 sitting with Spot in his arms gently stroking her fur.

"You know, if we can work out how to phrase the question, we might get an interesting answer from him." Taryn suggested.

…

It was just before eight in the morning and Taryn had been in the lab since six. She had filled that time talking with B-4, seizing an opportunity as there was currently little to distract him. Spot, their new guest was curled up, sound asleep in her basket in the corner and she had arrived to find B-4 watching her sleep.

Taryn had put a lot of thought into how she would broach the subject of memory with B-4. She knew he wouldn't be able to describe the memories of the other three androids, as far as she knew he had not consciously accessed them and was unaware of their presence, she also doubted he was fully aware of the colonist's experiences but he was becoming increasingly proficient at accessing the database housed within his memory. The knowledgebase, as they called it was in many respects an encyclopaedia of knowledge all Soong-type androids possessed. It gave them the basic information they needed to fill in the gaps in their experience and help them to understand the often baffling colloquial language and social behaviour that occurred around them. It was by no means an exhaustive repository, how could it be? But it prevented them from asking endless questions and gave them self-sufficiency as they would not require constant computer access to look everything up. As time went on they would be less reliant on this part of their system. B-4 was still finding his to be something of a novelty and was now using it all the time when something else wasn't distracting him, not that they complained as it summoned Data. Geordi had been able to confirm that he never witnessed Lore accessing at all and Data had all but abandoned this function in his later years as his experience had grown, but when they were first assigned to the Enterprise he had used it all the time. In fact La Forge said some would frequently refer to him as 'The Walking Thesaurus'.

"I do not understand." B-4 tilted his head.

"I know, I'm asking difficult questions today. I'm sorry." she apologized as she stood opposite him.

"That is alright." he replied.

"It's not alright, I'm confusing you." she said distractedly.

"I am often confused." he said then frowned slightly, "Did you mean the colours?"

"Colours?" she asked.

"When I remember what has happened it is a different colour to the things I find when I say 'accessing'."

Taryn thought carefully about her next question and whetted her lips.

"What colour are they?" she asked.

"It is not exactly a colour, but it is different."

"Can you describe how?"

He frowned, "No, it is just different."

"I see." she smiled at him, "You've been very helpful."

His lip twitched into a slight smile. "Have I?"

She nodded, "It's good that you can access your information now isn't it?"

"It is better than using the terminal." he stated, "The terminal is too slow."

 _"_ _Now there's another mystery solved."_ Taryn thought, no wonder he hadn't wanted to use the classroom terminal. It was slow by design, it was for children to use. She could have kicked herself. The interface may have been appropriate to his comprehension level but that didn't make it appropriate for him. She made a mental note to see if adaptions could be made. She was so lost in thought she didn't even notice that B-4 had begun to access his memory store.

His hand suddenly gripped her throat hard. Instinctively she grabbed at his shoulder with her right hand to push him away, then instinct gave way to the will to survive and she reached behind him for his off switch with her other hand. She felt his hand close over her wrist at his shoulder and pull it free from the fabric. Searing white hot pain flared as she felt and heard the bones in her wrist snap and dislocate under his grip. She made no scream, a choking gasping sound was all that emerged from her lips. She could just feel the edge of the switch with her fingers but was too late, he was lifting her off the ground by the neck and pulling it beyond her reach.

"Stop it." he said, his face contorted with hate and anger. "Stop!"

Frantically she tried to reach for his head, a panel, something, anything to make him stop but her arms were shorter than his and she couldn't reach beyond his shoulder.

"Stop!" he spat.

She wondered which would happen first, asphyxia from the crushing of her windpipe or the snapping of her vertebrae as she was held suspended from the ground. Her legs kicked involuntarily, she was dancing, she thought. A poem flashed through her mind in her grandfather's voice.

 _"_ _On the black gallows, one-armed friend,  
The paladins are dancing, dancing"_

She felt herself beginning to pass out.

"Stop!"

 _"_ _I'm so sorry."_ she thought as a tear rolled down her cheek and over his hand. No-one deserved this on their conscience, least of all Data and B-4.

Everything went dark.

 _References_

 _Poem - Dance of the Hanged Men by Arthur Rimbaud._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Geordi waited as the android went through the memories that pre-empted Data's arrival. He didn't really know what he was going to say. He wasn't alone, that was a new precaution they were taking since… the incident. He couldn't even bring himself to think about it let alone describe it. He looked over at Maddox, his expression was equally grim. They hadn't told B-4 what had happened. They knew he would never understand.

Data blinked and looked at the two men sitting on stools facing him. From their expressions he knew something was wrong.

"What has happened?" Data asked.

"Data, there was an accident." Geordi said. "It happened last time you were coming through while you were reliving old experiences."

"What kind of accident? What experiences?" he blurted. The two men exchanged glances.

"Data, do you remember when you felt your first emotion?" Geordi asked.

"Of course, I had killed a borg and…" he stopped, "Did I injure someone?"

"Yes Data." Geordi answered. "You injured Taryn."

Data closed his eyes and blanched, something only Geordi's vision could detect. "Did I kill her?" he whispered.

"No, but she's hurt pretty bad, we still don't know exactly how bad." Geordi explained.

"Where is she?"

"The Medical Centre." Bruce replied.

Data rose and walked straight to the inner door which flew open at his touch. However the outer lab door was set to keep B-4 inside. He tried to force it open with his fingers but was unable so he set his shoulder against it until it warped and buckled, giving way just enough for him to squeeze through and he stalked off down the corridor with Geordi and Bruce trailing behind him.

"So much for our android proof door." Maddox muttered. "I'd have unlocked it if he'd given me a chance."

The pale android strode across the campus with the two officers forming a phalanx in his wake as students and staff scattered in his path as he cut a swathe to the Medical Centre. He deftly side-stepped a med tech and two nurses who protested at his presence until he met the one man strong enough to stop him from entering the treatment area.

"Data, hold it right there." The Doctor snapped with his hand on the android's upper chest. "She's going to be fine, but I don't think you should see her right now."

"How is she?" Data asked.

"Her larynx was fractured along with her right wrist. I've repaired both but it will be a while before she can speak. Luckily she's a tough little minx and Commander La Forge was able to intervene and deactivate you before you broke her neck." The Doctor explained.

"How long was she oxygen deprived?" Data asked softly.

"Not long, there's no sign of any neurological damage." The Doctor reassured him.

There was a tapping and the four men turned to see Taryn banging on the edge of the biobed with a padd. She beckoned for The Doctor to let Data in.

The Doctor caught his arm as he passed. "She has some petechial haemorrhaging in her eyes but it looks worse than it is." he warned. Data nodded and entered the room.

Data was grateful he didn't have his emotion chip fitted when he saw her on the bed. She was a small woman but somehow she seemed even smaller surrounded by the equipment in the treatment bay. He could picture her helpless in his grasp as he strangled her as he had the Borg, it was a disturbing image, more so than the heady mix of emotions he had felt while standing over the Borg's lifeless corpse. She was sitting cross-legged wearing a blue vest top, clearly what she had been wearing under her teal blue turtle-neck which was lying discarded at the foot of the bed along with her uniform jacket. He recognized her body language, he had seen it frequently in sickbay in officers who simply wanted to return to their duties regardless of the severity of their injuries.

Her eyes, even The Doctor's warning didn't fully prepare him. Her dark olive irises were rimmed by acid green, the whites of her eyes were completely bloodshot with her emerald blood and her upper and lower eyelids were mottled with dark specks. Her throat and neck bore heavy bruising in the shape of a dark green hand print, his hand print that was already blackening in contrast to her jade skin.

He expected her to be angry. He expected her to hate and distrust him. He expected her to be afraid and recoil at his approach. What he didn't expect was her to rise to her knees, throw her arms around his shoulders and hold him tight. The last and only person to hold him like this had been his mother, Juliana when he had visited her on Atrea IV.

"I am so sorry." he whispered into her shoulder and returned her embrace. She was deceptively strong and felt surprisingly lean and toned in his arms. He wondered how much of her survival she owed to her fitness level and hybrid physique.

"Shush." she breathed and cupped his cheek in her hand, then pulled him to sit next to her on the bed. She began to sign, although clearly in some discomfort from her newly knitted wrist.

 _"_ _I read you signed for Riva of Ramatis, do you understand this form of signing?"_

"Yes." he replied.

 _"_ _Are you okay?"_

"No. I am not okay. I injured you." he stated. "What do you mean am I okay?

She waved him off. _"I've had worse knocks in training."_

"I could have killed you." he responded, wondering what she could possibly have been training for to obtain injuries this severe.

 _"_ _Not your fault. It's my fault, I should have anticipated something like this. I should have been more careful."_

"I am, we are dangerous in our current state. You must perform the ionization procedure without delay." he stated as he turned from her lizard-like green eyes and stood to leave. "I will ask Geordi to begin the repair of B-4's recall coding."

She grasped his wrist as he turned to prevent him leaving and sighed despairingly, shaking her head.

 _"_ _For someone with no emotions you're an expert at guilt."_

"But I do not feel…" he stopped, "I do feel guilty. I feel remorse." He looked at her in surprise.

 _"_ _You are also capable of self-doubt, it's all over your personal logs. Probably given to you by Dr Soong to prevent you being an arsehole like Lore. You have never been devoid of all emotion Data. You just never recognized the ones you had."_

"I do not understand the sign," he pressed his thumb and forefinger together.

 _"_ _Never mind."_ she signed with a smile, _"If they haven't told B-4 what happened yet, don't. I'll be back in the lab tomorrow and the bruising should have gone by then. He doesn't need to know."_ He nodded in response. She picked up a small padd and handed it to him. _"Give_ _this to Geordi and get back to work."_ she ordered. _"Now_ _stop talking about melting your brain and for God's sake grow a pair."_

"A pair of what?" he asked naively.

 _"_ _Ask Geordi."_ she signed with a smirk.

Data looked puzzled as he left the room and met Geordi and Maddox in the corridor.

"Everything okay Data?" Geordi asked.

"She says she will be back on duty tomorrow. She does not want B-4 to know what happened." Data informed them, "She also suggested I 'grow a pair'?"

Geordi laughed, "She may have a point there Data."

…

Even from beyond the grave Data was learning new things. He now knew how to call someone an anus in sign language and had discovered Lieutenant Commander Prior believed he should develop gonads although for what purpose he was uncertain. Surely as a cyberneticist familiar with his design she was aware he possessed anatomically correct external genitalia for aesthetic purposes and the addition of testes would be pointless as he lacked any other reproductive plumbing. However on balance he did think she was right about his emotions. He had always known he was capable of curiosity, it was one of his primary motivations but when he examined his memory he found many instances of guilt and self-doubt. He recalled one particular incident where four Binars had absconded with Captain Picard, Commander Riker and the Enterprise in order to save their homeworld. At the time the ship had been docked at a Starbase and Wesley Crusher had been minding the bridge while he had been painting and he distinctly remembered his thoughts at the time. He should have been on the bridge, he could and should have prevented what happened instead of pursuing his own interests. When he compared this experience to later ones after the installation of his emotion chip they were startlingly similar, the same thought process only lacking the fire, the charge of the real emotion. He decided that, should he get the opportunity, he would run a comparison of all his memories pre and post the emotion chip to see if he had unknowingly experienced other feelings, although he knew his current predicament may prevent him from doing so. He had made one other discovery, B-4 had a different perception of memory than his own. This surprised him, as they were so similar in construction he had always assumed their awareness of their processes would be the same. It did have a certain logic however, as he had always found B-4's responses to be unpredictable.

When Geordi had asked him the same question he had replied that he just simply knew where the memories had originated and he did not know how. But B-4 had spoken of colours although he had implied this wasn't a literal interpretation and this had intrigued him. He suspected Geordi may have opened a new line of inquiry that may prove interesting.

"What happened to the door?" Taryn asked, her eyes wide and still slightly flecked with green as she opened the slam door and looked back at the jammed doors he had forced asunder the day before.

"Sorry," Data replied from the terminal he was using in the lab. "That would be me."

"Did you throw me at it or something?" she asked.

"I was… highly motivated to ascertain your wellbeing." he explained.

"Oh Data, I'm touched. I don't think anyone's ever smashed a door to crap to see me before." she smiled and added. "So much for android proof."

"You should not be here unaccompanied." he warned.

"You're already here." she pointed out, "Unless you're harbouring homicidal thoughts about me?" At his serious expression she added, "This isn't the first time I've been injured in the course of my work accidentally or otherwise Data." she explained as she took a seat at the terminal next to him.

"You are a cyberneticist in a research facility. That is not a high risk occupation." he commented.

She sniffed, "It's been a while since we went on a field trip. Come and have a coffee." then added. "I'll promise I'll keep out of arms reach if B-4 reappears."

…

"I was always getting hurt in the gym, particularly the balance beam." she told him as she sipped a cup of fennel tea in the break room. "I lost count of how many times I cracked ribs and clavicles sprawling across it. I even ended up with a basal skull fracture once." She placed her cup on the table between them. "I messed up my dismount and staggered back, whacked the back of my head on the end of it."

"And you continued with gymnastics?" Data asked. "In spite of the risks."

"Of course, I loved it." she smiled, "You have to take risks and push yourself if you want to succeed in any sport."

"Do you still compete?" he asked.

"No, I got…boobs and I'm too long in the tooth for it now, I haven't competed since the Academy but I still train, just not as hard. I'd already taken up parkour when I came here to study, it was all the fun and none of the pressure so I still do that." She looked at the mug on the table. "Data, I had time to think while I was in medical and I owe you an apology, it was unfair of me to tell you to grow a pair when I need to myself."

"Are you going to undertake gender reassignment?" he asked earnestly.

"What?!" she snapped, an expression of horror on her face. "No, it's a figure of speech." She began to snort with laughter. He looked at her puzzled as she struggled to control herself but kept giggling. "It means, to well, be macho about something, like you have big... To be brave and sure of yourself."

"You have a most unusual turn of phrase." Data told her with a frown.

"I'm sorry, I keep forgetting how… literal you are." She giggled then cleared her throat. "I shouldn't laugh," then snorted again, "I did bring you here for a serious reason, I wanted to speak to you outside the monitoring system." Her expression turned grave. "I don't know who else to trust."

"You still trust me?" he asked, "After I…"

"Don't be a berk. Of course I trust you." she assured him.

Data was uncertain what a berk was, but he was able to follow the gist of the conversation. He was genuinely touched by her faith in him.

"After this assignment, when I've discharged my responsibility to B-4, and you," she added pointedly, "I'm going to resign my commission." She took the handle of her cup and raised it to her lips.

"Why?"

"Because there are things going on at the Annex that people need to know, and I need to tell." She looked at him intently. "You said I don't have a risky occupation? That would be true if I were a cyberneticist."

"You are not a cyberneticist?"

"It says that as my official job title but I've done more cybernetics in the last few weeks than I have in three years." She took a long sip of tea and swallowed. "Did you know that the Enterprise is unique in the fact that with all the artificial life they discovered they never once requested help from Starfleet Command?"

"I was not aware of that. Your statement implies that other ships in the fleet have also been meeting inorganic lifeforms." Data commented.

"It happens more often than you would believe, and when assistance is requested I'm what they get." She looked at him, "At first it was all very amicable, thanks to you. Once you were given rights in court even Admiral Haftel had to accept that he couldn't abduct people artificial or otherwise to Galor IV against their will so he had to gain their consent, but then a lifeform came along that he couldn't resist, and he could argue that she was the intellectual property of Starfleet. Of course he had to give the illusion that it was for her own good. So he employed some dirty tricks, said that her situation was inappropriate, that the man raising her wasn't equipped to socialise her properly, that his 'experts' were better qualified."

"Lal." Data whispered.

"I'm sorry Data, he lied to you. The Daystrom Annex is a thermocrete bunker six-hundred metres below ground. No-one could be successfully socialised there. Galor IV is a military research facility. Haftel isn't in the business of creating well-adjusted life-forms he's trying and so far failing to build killing machines. The chance of a female android that could infiltrate, crack security encryptions, seduce an enemy and not answer back will have had him rubbing his hands with glee."

Data sat back in his seat and considered what he had heard. Again he was thankful he lacked his emotion chip as the thought of Lal, his Lal, experimented on and reprogrammed was difficult enough to bear as it was but for her to be used as an agent provocateur, a whore? No wonder Haftel had brooked no argument with them at the time. He even offered to help him try to save her, was that just a ploy to see her construction?

"So having made an unholy mess of the entire situation he regrouped to come up with a different approach until three years ago when he heard about an idealistic and stupid young Ensign who had convinced a self-aware computer to let her get close enough to murder it and he had her transferred to his command regardless of her wishes in the matter. He loaned her out under orders to convince the beings she worked with to submit to study and she was a busy girl. The protocols to prevent beings like Moriarty being spawned never really worked and… some Starships started becoming self-aware and that was just the home-grown talent." she paused, "At first the study was benign, consent was gained, it was all above board but I noticed Haftel never agreed to let anyone leave, there was always just one more test. Then we heard you were destroyed and everything changed. The tests were more aggressive, more intrusive and then he stopped letting me have access to some of our… guests. Some disappeared from the records, some were never recorded. My orders changed to Disarm, Disable, Contain and Retrieve. No consent or negotiation any more so I started letting them escape, saying they eluded me and got away but Haftel just brought in more efficient, ruthless and less ethical officers to handle retrievals. They were dispatched to Velara III to collect samples from the Microbrain, Tyrus VIIa to obtain an Exocomp, Kavis Alpha IV to collect nanites from the civilisation there. Missions he knew I'd resign before accepting. There were even rumours that one of them retrieved a neurologically intact torso of a Borg Queen from a derelict sphere." her lip twitched slightly at Data's reaction. "Sorry. I know you two have… history."

"I am more concerned at the inherent danger a Borg Queen poses rather than my personal relationship, but thank you for the consideration." Data responded.

"They don't care about the danger, it's all about who can bag the biggest prize and Haftel encourages it. To him it's all more toys to play with and dissect. The man is despicable."

"Commander Prior…"

She held up her hand to stop him, "I have a personal rule that once someone has tried to wring my neck they have to use my given name." she smiled.

"Do you have orders to take B-4 to Galor IV?" he asked plainly.

"No. I'm here on secondment under Maddox' command. He requested me and Haftel agreed, he said he wanted me to get more hands on experience with Soong-types but I'm not sure I believe him. I think he just wanted me out of the way." She returned his gaze, "Even if I had those orders I promise you I'd never follow them."

"But someone else might." Data completed her thought. "How much does Captain Maddox know?"

"He has his suspicions, he knows some of it, by no means all. There are plenty of people stationed there who don't know the Annex is being turned into a concentration camp for synthetic life. But there have been some weird things going on with the reclassification of research recently that everyone is finding hard to miss. I think Haftel is playing some kind of end-game." she paused and chewed her lower lip, "I think the midden is about to hit the windmill Data."

Data leaned forward and placed his hand over hers. "We need to share all you know with Captain Maddox and Commander La Forge." She nodded in agreement. "Together we may be able to prevent excrement from hitting any rapidly rotating blades."

…

"Oh it's going to hit the fan alright and were all going to get a shower of shit." Maddox proclaimed with his head in his hands. "You could have come to me with this sooner Taryn."

"And you'd have done what?" Taryn exclaimed. "I wanted to keep you out of it. If this goes as high as we think it does someone will be expected to fall on their sword and I'm already complicit, it should be me not you."

"I do not believe that you were complicit." Data commented, "You said yourself that you have been allowing lifeforms to escape rather than retrieving them for study."

"Yes but there were two years of me being really good at what I did. I can be a very persuasive and manipulative bitch when I choose to be. Then there were the ones I couldn't reason with or find a technical solution and I killed them."

"Taryn, you were the last line of defence, you did what you had to, to save lives not because you enjoyed it." Geordi replied. "I've seen you with B-4, you just aren't that person."

"I wish I could believe that." Taryn whispered sadly.

"The fact that you don't means there's hope for you." Bruce added.

"Perhaps you should strap on a pair and stop bitching about things you cannot change." Data suggested.

Taryn smirked and waved her index finger at Data. "I had a feeling I'd be a bad influence on you."

"None of us know what we would have done in your situation. Even I concluded there was no other choice than to deactivate and dismantle my own brother." Data added.

"So what do we do now?" Geordi asked.

"For now we do nothing and stay vigilant." Maddox suggested, "Our priority is B-4 and Data and we need Taryn on the project. As to what Haftel is up to I've been in contact with the other researchers affected by Security Order 347-618. They know about as much as we do. Until we know more I don't see how we can formulate a plan of action."

"I may have a contact at the Annex that could help," Taryn added reluctantly, "I'm not sure how trustworthy he is though. While we were dating I caught him with someone else in a storage locker."

"Doing what?" Data asked innocently

"Data, he was with someone else," Geordi intoned, "while they were dating."

"Ah, I see." Data replied, "He was in flagrante, I take it."

"Her name was Debbie, not Flagrante." Taryn joked and nudged Data with her elbow jovially, then at his baffled expression, cackled with laughter.

"You know Data, I'd forgotten how slow on the uptake you were before your emotion chip." Geordi shook his head, smiling.

"Wait," Maddox asked, "If we can isolate Data's matrix could we stabilise it with an adapted emotion chip?"

"No." Data interjected.

"We'd have to build one." Geordi reasoned, "Maybe from scratch if we don't have the files."

"We do have the files." Maddox replied, "We downloaded everything to isolinear chips when we found Taryn had clearance."

"You'd have to help." Geordi turned to Data.

"No. I will not. I refuse…"

"If he won't I will." Taryn commented. "I've been studying it in my off time."

"This is not what was agreed." Data argued.

"Data, this way you would retain B-4's memories, he would live on in you." Taryn reasoned. "Besides this is all theoretical."

"No it is not." Data admitted guiltily. "I have identified a hidden marker in my memory files."

"And when exactly were you planning to share this with us?" Geordi asked.

"Never." Data responded, avoiding Geordi's gaze.

"You've seen yesterday's matrix scan." Taryn stated, rolling her eyes.

"What's in it?" Geordi asked.

"Because B-4 is repeatedly accessing his knowledgebase my matrix is becoming increasingly active and his is not. Mine is growing while his remits." Data explained.

"In the scan we took last night Data's matrix has begun to overwhelm B-4's, it's only a matter of time before Data's development dissects the other structure to the point it is no longer viable." Taryn added.

"But The Doctor said there was no risk to B-4…" Geordi stated.

"From the seizures yes, but no-one could have foreseen this." Bruce intoned.

"How long?" Geordi asked.

"Days." Taryn replied.

"Nine days, twenty-two hours, sixteen minutes…"

"Thank you Data, I get the point." Geordi spat angrily. "You really expect us to kill you?"

"To save B-4, yes." Data stated plainly. "I believe I have made my wishes on the subject plain."

"There is another option, but we will have to take action now." Taryn stated. "Otherwise there will be debate and argument ad infinitum."

"Go on." Geordi prompted.

Taryn, reached behind Data and his face took on a slightly confused expression before he pitched face first into the conference table.

"We stop the countdown." Taryn explained.

…

They returned to the lab with an android slung unconscious between Geordi and Taryn with Maddox bringing up the rear.

"You'd really break your promise and sacrifice B-4?" Geordi asked her in a low voice.

"In a heartbeat, but I'll never forgive myself for it, I'll admit." she replied quietly as she pulled on B-4's wrist and adjusted his weight on her shoulder, "It's in Data's best interests, and he'd stand a far better chance if he ends up at the Annex. I can't bear the thought of what would happen to our sweet…" She blinked and swallowed, clearly distressed at the thought. "Especially as that incompetent vandal Eden is there now. I'd sooner put B-4 down here with people who love him than let them turn him into God knows what."

"Data will never forgive us." Geordi added.

"I'll say it was all me. I can live with that as long as he doesn't forgive me for a very long time and I'm talking centuries. It will be more than worth it."

"Problem with your android Maddox?" a colleague asked archly as he passed them in the corridor. "Has Prior forgotten how to turn him on?"

"How's yours Davis? Last I heard she was calling everything 'blue' and kept falling on her face." Maddox replied, "I told you her breasts were too big."

"Breasts can never be too big." Davis shouted over his shoulder.

"Did this building somehow miss the last few hundred years of socio-sexual development?" Taryn mused. "Cybernetics is such a boys club." They stopped when they reached the lab door. "I thought they were fixing this door this morning"

"Apparently not." Maddox said.

"I can hold him while you two step through and take him." Taryn said resignedly.

"He weighs a good hundred kilos." Geordi argued.

"I'm stronger than I look, Vulcan and Orion DNA does that for a girl, and his legs are on the floor it's not his full weight." she explained. She held the android around the chest with his arm draped over her shoulder while the two men squeezed through and reached back to take him by the armpits and rotate him through the door. Taryn then lifted his feet to squeeze him through the gap.

That was when the two senior officers dropped him on his face, there was a sickening scraping noise and the men just stood there looking at his inert form.

"Oops." Geordi grimaced. "That had to hurt."

"Great." Taryn tossed his feet aside and stepped through the door then grabbed B-4 by the collar, lifted his face off the ground and crouched to look at it.

"Well he still has a nose," she commented, "just about, his eyebrow will need a little work though, and his chin, and his, okay most of his face but it looks fairly superficial. Note to self, bioplast skin and thermocrete surfaces are not friends." She flipped him over, lifted him by the shoulders and dragged him to the medical bed with her hands locked in front of his chest. "Are you waiting for a written invitation gentlemen?" she asked sarcastically. She was too short to hoist him onto the surface alone.

With him safely on the biobed and La Forge and Maddox working on his face Taryn began examining the terminal Data had been using for the last few days.

"Soong you crafty bugger." she muttered, "I don't have a clue how you did it, but you have done us a huge favour."

"Didn't Data encrypt his research?" Geordi asked.

"He did, but I have spyware on all the terminals." Taryn replied.

"I thought you trusted him." Geordi smiled.

"Yes, and he kept secrets from us." she responded, "Oh my God." Horror spread over her face. She tapped her communicator, "Prior to Ashby.

 _"_ _Ashby here."_

"Are you in the control room Dan?"

 _"_ _Yeah, I've been enjoying watching you three play Pass the Android."_

"Shut down the surveillance system now!"

 _"_ _I'm on it."_

"What's wrong?" Bruce asked as he came to stand behind her.

"Someone else's spyware is in our system." Taryn explained as her fingers danced over the controls. "It's very sophisticated. Aside from copying all our research out of the Daystrom Core it's transmitting our live feed via subspace."

"Taryn, you're the only cyberneticist who records their work. Who would know to even look for a live feed?" Maddox asked.

"Someone from the Annex." she replied.

"Why do you record what you do?" Geordi asked.

"In this case to monitor B-4's development objectively, although it's usually so the next person they send in knows what I did wrong if I get my head ripped off by some stroppy hologram." She squinted at the screen, "I can't trace it, its bouncing all over Federation relays."

"Is there anything to indicate how it got into the system? Or who put it there?" Maddox asked.

"I can't find anything…" she added, "But someone sent a file using the same backdoor as the spyware at 0236 hours this morning."

"The only people in the lab at that time would be Data or B-4, could someone have used B-4 the same way as Shinzon did to infiltrate the Daystrom Core?" Geordi asked.

"No we stripped out that hardware and software before we reassembled him." Maddox explained.

"Someone else was here at that time." Taryn added sadly as she brought up an image of someone using the terminal at the correct timecode. "Ruxia."

"Priority One Communique from Admiral Haftel." the terminal chirped.

"He didn't waste any time." Maddox commented, "We'll leave the room for you to read it."

"No, stay." she told him, "No more secrets." She brought up the message on screen, it was surprisingly short. "I've been recalled to Galor IV. I ship out on the Odyssey at 2100 tonight."

…

It was 1100 hours the following day and Dan, Bruce, Geordi and The Doctor where standing in the main lab surrounding B-4 as he lay inert on the medical bed. Maddox had used the fact that their Android would be deactivated for the foreseeable future as an excuse to shut down the night shift meaning they did not require as many staff and he could reassign Ruxia to another cyberneticist. He chose Project Blue Boobs primarily out of spite but also as it was the least promising project they were currently running in the Cybernetics Department. For all Maddox cared Haftel was welcome to the plans for Davis' cybernetic floozy. She showed no sign of intelligence at all let alone sentience, mind you the same could be said for his ex-wife.

"Can you do it or not Geordi?" Maddox asked.

"When I worked on repairing the emotion chip with Data he took the lead." La Forge shook his head. "I can try. God knows he isn't going to want to help."

"Taryn made it sound easy before she left." Dan added.

"Taryn made everything sound easy, that was part of her charm." The Doctor commented nostalgically.

"I don't think the language she used could really be described as charming," Maddox smirked. "But she did have a point, we do have full schematics on file, the software…" Bruce replied. "Soong worked on it for decades though, and you two spent years on it once you retrieved it."

"How long are you four going to stand around waffling before you actually do some work?" Taryn asked with a smirk. She was leaning in the doorway with her toned arms folded across a white vest top wearing black combat pants and training shoes.

"Shouldn't you be on your way to the Annex by now?" Maddox asked.

"I'm on compassionate leave, family tragedy." she stated as she walked over to join them.

"Oh my God what happened?" Dan asked.

She shrugged, "Big family, someone's bound to be having a crisis of some sort."

"Haftel will have you cleaning the heads at Galor IV with a toothbrush for the rest of your career when he finds you aren't on the Odyssey." Geordi warned.

"He knows, he already called my Dad to tell tales." She smiled, "Luckily Dad thinks Haftel derailed his little girl's career and made her his bitch. He wouldn't piss on the man if he was on fire. The great thing about lawyers is how easily they can lie on the spot. I reckon I have a good five days to a week before I have to be on a transport."

"So much for honour among Admirals." The Doctor responded.

"I know this seems like a big, horrible job." Taryn reasoned, "We just have to focus on the functionality, we don't have to make it tiny like Soong's original, it just needs to fit in his head."

"At least we don't need to painstakingly rebuild the damn thing after it's been fried in someone else. What?" Geordi asked as Taryn gripped his forearm.

"It couldn't be that simple." she whispered and blinked slowly, then turned and left the lab at a run.

"Where are you going?" Bruce shouted after her.

"The vault!" she yelled over her shoulder.

 _Authors note:_

 _Uniforms – This is something that has got on my nerves for years. I know they are jumpsuits, they're obviously jumpsuits but Janeway and Torres are always taking the top half of theirs off. In the Voyager episode Pathfinder Barclay is wearing his movie style uniform 'jumpsuit' top as a jacket and in the Next Generation episode Ensign Ro she opens her rear opening uniform top at the front and puts it on a kid like a jacket. In light of this evidence I'm assuming it's a special futuristic fabric that opens wherever you want it to. So in this story I refer to jackets, but I know in my heart they are jumpsuits and I type it with gritted teeth._

 _I did say I was anal at the start!_

 _ync_

 _xx_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Armed security officers were a rare sight at the Daystrom Institute, but as evening fell they swarmed across the campus. It was six days since Taryn had disobeyed her orders and remained on Earth and the view from the window made her glad she had.

She was putting away tools when they burst in, there were six security guards armed with phaser rifles flanking two people she recognized, Ruxia Dar and Dr Jason Eden.

"Here are your orders Prior." Ruxia snapped curtly, handing her a padd. "I recommend you follow them this time."

Taryn tutted, "No first names anymore Ruxia?" Taryn replied as she flicked through the orders. "Tell me, were you really distracted by a diagnostic while I was being choked to death, or did you enjoy watching it too much to intervene?"

"What did you do to my android?" Eden snapped, "He looks younger."

"Your android?" Taryn snorted, "Have you finally managed to build one?"

He back-handed her across the face. Instinctively she lifted the back of her hand to her mouth and saw bright green blood was coming from her lip. She laughed.

"My seven year old niece hits harder than that Eden."

"Listen you green-assed slut, its high time you learned some damn respect."

"For you?" She snorted, "You'd have to be a lot less incompetent for me to ever respect you."

He struck her again, "I want to know everything you and that prick Maddox have done with B-4."

"We reset his aging software for a start, then we got him up on the ramp, replaced his filters and bushes, changed his oil, rotated his tyres, gave him a full service, although I don't think we're an authorised garage and we probably voided his warranty." She pulled a guilty face.

"You can't take anything seriously can you?" Eden spat.

"That's a bit harsh. I just don't take you seriously." She snorted derisively, "You call yourself a cyberneticist and you can't even fit a memory engram the right way around. You're a joke."

"We'll see who's a joke you little bitch. Tag the android for transport, cuff her and take her to the ship."

"That's not what it says in these orders." Taryn stated. "Nothing about cuffs here. Nothing about you giving orders for that matter, it says Commander Young is in charge of this mission. You're only a civilian advisor according to this."

"She's right Doctor." Ruxia conceded. "Her orders are to report to the Bastion by 0000 hours to return to the Annex. We don't have orders for her apprehension."

"And report I shall, like a good little Lieutenant Commander. Perhaps you should remember my rank and moderate your tone in future Lieutenant Junior Grade." she slapped the orders into the Trill's hand and turned to Eden. "And as for you, you're lucky I don't have you charged with assault." She glared into his piggy eyes until he blinked and looked away.

"We're taking B-4 now." Eden spat.

"I'm not stopping you." Taryn replied distractedly and returned to cleaning her tools.

One of the security guards touched his communicator and the unconscious pale android vanished in a shimmering transporter beam.

"See you at midnight." Taryn said as she watched them leave the lab.

Geordi, Dan and Maddox appeared from the Control Room which had been sealed and shielded to hide their biosignatures. They had turned it into a safe room.

"I thought you weren't going to let them take him." Geordi snapped.

"That was before I read those orders." she explained, "It's a dragnet. They're taking everyone on the Security Order 347-618 list plus you and Dan. I hate to cut and run but someone has to get over to the Medical Centre. They have orders to disperse The Doctor to get his mobile emitter."

"Do we hide, or should we let them take us?" Dan asked.

"They have orders to keep looking until they find you. Those fellas with guns don't look like they're here for a pillow fight so watch yourselves." She opened the window and vaulted out of it. "And don't worry, I know the Bastion. I have a plan, or at least an idea, a concept anyway." she added popping her head back through the window. "I'll see you on board if I don't see you sooner."

"That's not exactly reassuring Prior." Geordi shouted after her.

She used the cover of twilight as she sprinted across the garden and jumped across a stair well to a far wall which she caught by her fingertips, pressed her feet against and vaulted over the rail onto a concourse. She carefully approached the far wall which overlooked the quad, it looked clear but the corners were too shadowy to be certain. Another option was to head upwards and gain access from one of the floors above the Medical Centre. It was risky, but there was a narrow wall a short jump from the concourse that headed upwards at what she estimated was a thirty degree angle. Opting for nothing fancy, no bells, whistles or flips, she landed the jump and walked carefully along the wall, it was narrower than she thought, but no narrower than her nemesis, the balance beam. She wished she was barefoot or in training shoes, but she was in uniform and her boots were less than ideal. She reached the top and found herself level to a fourth floor window of the Medical and Biosciences Building which housed the Medical Centre on the ground floor, but a courtyard of approximately four metres square lay between her and her goal. She knew she couldn't make a standing jump that far but there was a chance she could catch the sill of one of the lower windows. In fact if it came to it she could always be carried in as a patient she thought sarcastically. She wiped the sweat from her hands on the thighs of her uniform and jumped.

…

Geordi was sat on the lab floor in magnetic cuffs, nursing a cut lip. He looked over at Maddox who was wincing and supporting his ribs on one side with his arm and Dan sported a black eye that was swelling shut. They were guarded by six armed officers in yellow collars. There were a lot of feet on the ground, Geordi had yet to see the same officer twice. Two further guards shoved a manacled Barclay into the room at phaser point, rapidly followed by two more escorting a blonde female and then another two with a dark haired human male in his mid-thirties that they shoved to the floor, he nodded at Maddox in greeting.

Geordi thought it was overkill to use twelve officers to guard six people in handcuffs especially as most engineers and scientists even in Starfleet are basically nerds.

Two more guards entered, hauled Maddox to his feet and shoved him towards the door.

"Where are you taking me?" Bruce snapped.

"The Vault." one of them replied. "We need you to open it."

Geordi exchanged a worried glance with Dan.

…

The technician looked up from his microscope at the sound of tapping on the window. Unable to see anything he rose and walked towards it warily. He started as a green hand appeared from below and rapped on the window again. He quickly opened the window.

"Hi." Taryn smiled up at him then clambered in through the window. "Don't mind me, just passing through." she said as she ran across the room and disappeared into the corridor. She was out of breath by the time she had run down the stairs and found The Doctor.

"What happened to your face?" he asked as he noticed her cut lip and bruised cheekbone.

"Doctor I haven't time to explain, but I want you to know I'm really sorry."

"Sorry for what?" he asked as she grabbed his mobile emitter and ripped it from his sleeve. He vanished in a fizz of photonic light. She unzipped her turtleneck and tucked the emitter into her clothing and zipped it shut again, all the while trying to control her breathing.

With seconds to spare six security men armed with nasty looking photon dispersal guns entered the Medical centre and began searching.

"Prior?" one of them said gruffly, "What are you doing here?" She simply pointed to her face in response. "Is The Doctor here?"

"No I haven't seen him." she replied, a picture of innocence as she released a hefty dose of pheromones. "He might have gone off campus for the evening."

"Where?"

"Do I look like his appointment secretary?" she replied coquettishly, "I'm only here because Eden hit me." She pouted slightly and rubbed her bruised cheek. "Twice."

"He what?" the officer said, "The bastard." He lowered his weapon. "Look, there's no-one on duty here and I'm a medic. Let's beam up to the Bastion and I'll take care of that for you." He placed an arm around her protectively. "The extraction point is this way."

She smiled up at him, hoping she could manage to extract herself from this game of Doctors and Nurses before he went rummaging in her bra and found she wasn't alone.

…

The Daystrom Six had been beamed into a cargo bay on what La Forge suspected was a Defiant class ship. They had been scanned and searched somewhat roughly, particularly Barclay although they were given no indication of why. They had at least removed the cuffs before they shut them in. Maddox introduced the two scientists he was unfamiliar with as Bill Mitchell, and Lucy Sheridan. They were subsequently joined by Dr Zimmerman and Dr Ootani, a stroppy Zakdorn who wouldn't shut up until Zimmerman had threatened to garrotte him with his own intestines.

"I'm a post-grad research assistant." Dan moaned, "What do they want with me?"

"The rest of us don't have the luxury of assistants." Zimmerman said acidly, "I had to program my own. They took her too."

"They t…took Hayley?" Barclay asked. "They definitely took her only I saw photonic dispersal rifles at Daystrom. Heading toward the Medical Centre."

"Oh God, they wouldn't," Zimmerman paled, "they can't. They're sentient. There are laws."

"The law didn't stop them snatching us." Mitchell pointed out.

"Prior was headed to the Medical Centre last time we saw her." Maddox told them.

"On her own?" Barclay asked, "You…you let her go on her own?"

"Reg, she's on their side remember." Geordi warned, reminding him the walls may have ears. "She'll be fine, in fact she's probably on board by now, asleep in her quarters." he leaned closer to Zimmerman and Barclay, "They wanted the emitter, not The Doctor and planned to dissolve him to get it."

"Hey that's why that dude kept groping your balls." Dan whispered to Barclay, "They didn't find it, and thought you had it. I guess he wasn't after your goodies after all."

"That's a huge comfort, thank you." Barclay replied facetiously and adjusted his crotch.

"Of course they were looking for something you moron," Zimmerman exclaimed, "what did you think he was man-handling him for, his debonair charm?" He cast his eyes at Barclay askance, "No offence Reg, I'm sure the right person will find you perfectly lovely."

"Person?" Barclay asked, "Dr Z, we've been friends for years and you think I'm… Sorry, what exactly do you think?"

"Well, you're very reticent and quiet and I didn't like to presume. You often seemed to be hanging around my lab a lot." Zimmerman reasoned.

"I was working there."

"You were very attentive while I was ill." Zimmerman added.

"So that means I'm in love with you does it? Visiting a dying friend who no-one else can stand?"

"Raging egotist." Dr Ootani muttered under his breath.

"I'm sorry, of course it's perfectly obvious you prefer…" the holographer stopped, his lips mouthing soundlessly.

"Women." Barclay stated.

"Really?" Zimmerman responded with surprise.

"Guys," Geordi interrupted, "I realize this is an issue far more vital than our current problem but we just jumped to warp and we're accelerating fast."

…

Taryn had escaped the clutches of the medic with her virtue relatively intact and had found out that not only had they taken the researchers but had taken the entire contents of the Turing Centre vault, a number of holograms which had been transferred to the ships core, and their errant android. With only four decks the Bastion only had a two cell Brig, not big enough for eight people, so she suspected they were holding the prisoners in one of the smaller cargo bays and she could guess which one, only an idiot would put them in the one that contained a transporter. They would need the two larger holds for all the kit they had appropriated.

She was classified as a passenger, which limited her options severely. She was in no position to give orders and only had limited access to the ship. She would have to use guile, coercion and unleash her inner bitch if she was to succeed in her plan.

She knew what her next move had to be. She had to break into the computer core and get working. She knew it would take little more than an hour's work to do what she needed to. The problem was the risk of getting caught and thrown into the cargo bay with the prisoners during that hour was astronomically high with all the Annex henchmen around. If she were to be caught with The Doctor in her bra (so to speak) they could erase him in a matter of moments. She had to find somewhere to hide him, somewhere safe, somewhere they wouldn't look.

She was walking in circles around the small ship trying to think, but she also had an ulterior motive. She was scent marking like an alley cat. Her Vulcan great-grandmother had not only taught her how to suppress her pheromones but how to increase their production and she was currently pumping out musk from every pore. She hated it, to her it was a rancid taint that she blasted from her body in a sonic shower whenever she awoke, but today it was a tool. A useful one given that from what she had seen the crew of forty-six were predominantly human and predominantly male. If she could make them prone to her suggestion it increased her chance of talking her way out of a tricky situation. She doubted she could take the ship in this way, she wasn't her biological mother after all. Now she was a vixen and a half. Mad as a bucket of Tribbles with the parental skills of a Borg Drone perhaps, but from what Taryn had been told she had wiles that could melt a polar ice-cap. Right now Taryn would take every advantage she could get, biological or otherwise. She inhaled deeply through her nose, a long steadying breath but she could already feel her hormones baying in her blood, stealing her focus.

She needed to clear her mind and think.

…

The door of the cargo bay opened and Geordi could see Prior talking with an armed guard. She was looking at him askance with one arm behind her back, her weight on one leg and her other foot twisting playfully around her toe. She chewed her lower lip, not in the way she did when she was worried or wrestling with a problem, it added to her overall image which reeked of sexual vulnerability. Her long raven hair was loosely twisted over one shoulder which she twirled idly with her finger instead of tied back in a practical French plait. This was not the same girl he had last seen jumping out of the lab window.

She looked intoxicating, overwhelmingly beautiful. He became acutely aware of every male in the cargo bay with him. He felt suspicion, they were a threat, competition. Beside him Lucy frowned and pressed her palm against her temple. He smirked as he realized what Taryn was doing and fought the impulse, struggled to clear his mind and keep control.

"Please, I mean they probably won't let me see him once we get to the Annex?" she pleaded.

So that's where they were headed, although he had guessed as much anyway.

"I shouldn't really." the henchman said, wavering between duty and her biochemical warfare. "Okay, but not long and the door stays open."

Geordi nearly laughed out loud as she ran and leapt into Barclay's arms and wrapped her legs around his waist. The man's expression was one of horror, surprise and possibly delight as she kissed him to silence his stammering protests.

"I didn't think they'd let me see you," she whispered as she appeared to be trying to chew the pips from his collar, "and I _so_ needed to see you." She snaked her hand to his throat and Geordi heard the sound of a zip opening.

"I..I... oh." his hand slid up her back and tangled in her hair as he fervently returned her kiss.

"Okay, that's enough." the guard said as he grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled. "Come on I said enough." he wrenched her from Barclays grasp but he followed her towards the door as though they were joined at the lips.

"Remember. Everything will be okay. Trust me." she told him as they parted and the guard shoved her out through the door.

"Jeez," the guard said looking at Reg appraisingly, "it really is always the quiet ones." He shook his head as he returned to his post and the door slid shut behind him.

Geordi walked over to the environmental controls near the door and turned up the scrub and recycle rate to the maximum.

"What the hell was that?" Mitchell exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, is she the one who's supposed to be on their side?" Ootani asked.

Zimmerman clapped his hands together and laughed, "You kept that quiet Reg, how long has this been going on you sly dog?"

"Um… sorry?" Barclay responded looking dazed. "How long? Well, about a minute or so. D...Did that really just happen?" he blurted in disbelief, pointing at the door.

Geordi nodded with a grin on his face. "Uh… Reg? I think she left you a gift." he indicated his open turtleneck.

"What?" he reached into his shirt and withdrew the mobile emitter. "Oh." he said, disappointed.

Geordi felt for him, but by the same measure he didn't feel right telling him that she had kissed him because she liked him, not just to offload 29th century tech. She'd been so adamant she didn't want any outside interference.

"Aw man that sucks." Dan slapped Barclay on the shoulder. "I know how you feel, I've been flirting with her for months now. Nothing, zip, nada."

"If I were twenty years younger…" Zimmerman commented.

"She'd be eight years old you dirty old man." Maddox chided from his position crouched in the corner.

"You're all missing the point gentlemen." Lucy intoned, "Aside from the fact if she just wanted to distract the guards to palm something off she could have kissed me. They certainly wouldn't have dragged her off so quickly, but out of all of us she picked you Reg, clearly she trusts you at the very least. The point is she's handed over the emitter to someone she knows has already been searched. She must think she's in danger of being frisked and doesn't want the crew to get their hands on it."

Geordi nodded in agreement. "She's planning to do something risky."

"Lucy's right Reg," Maddox smiled at his colleague. "I don't know why she picked you but she must have a reason, especially with two studs like Daniel 'Sex Pest' Ashby and Humbert Humbert here as competition." he rolled his eyes. "She's right it is a boy's club." he added. "When I first met her she was fourteen and an undergraduate at Daystrom. Fourteen and by far the brightest in her class. That's why I fought to get her on this project, but from the day she arrived she's been the butt of every sexist joke imaginable, had snide comments implying she slept her way to Lieutenant Commander from most of the faculty and been sexually harassed by half the students. All because of the colour of her skin. And we claim to live in an enlightened society; well not if you have Orion blood. I asked her a few weeks ago how she puts up with it and do you know what she said?" he shook his head, "'A few bitchy comments are nothing compared to what the Mark-I EMH's in the dilithium mines and waste transfer barges have to put up with.' Men with your face Zimmerman, all with the potential to be living beings working as slaves." He laughed mirthlessly. "She actually takes comfort from the fact we treat synthetic life worse than we do her. A sickening indictment on humanity don't you think?" He pointed at the door, "If she's working it that hard she's in real trouble, she hates her pheromones, she's ashamed of them and she'd only use them as a last resort. She's human on the inside and she's scared."

"Scared of getting caught?" Mitchell asked.

"Scared of what will happen to us and every synthetic imprisoned at the Annex if she fails." La Forge intoned.

Barclay was standing chewing a knuckle with one arm folded across his chest, he stopped and looked around the cargo bay eyeing its proportions. "Defiant class?" he asked La Forge.

"I think so." Geordi responded.

Barclay walked over to a panel and removed it, then examined some circuitry carefully. "I made this interlink. I know what ship we're on." Barclay commented, "This is the Bastion."

"That's what Taryn said, the Bastion." Dan replied.

"We fitted a Holotronic Matrix Scanner on this ship. That's when we met, I mean she'd been working on the memory core. They'd brought her aboard because the computer had been acting up."

"Wait," La Forge held up his hand, "There's only one reason why they'd call her in to look at a ship."

Maddox' eyes widened. "Reg, how exactly had the computer been 'acting up'?"

"It was before we arrived but, they were shipping out bodies, had them lined up near the transporter room in bags. I must have looked, well she patted my arm as she walked past and said…" he looked at Maddox, "She said, 'Don't worry, I've fixed it. Everything will be okay. Trust me.'"

"Oh great." Zimmerman exclaimed. "We're on a ship of death on the way to a photonic concentration camp. Today just gets better and better."

"No." Bruce corrected, "We're on a homicidal self-aware ship of death on the way to a photonic concentration camp."

"Why were you fitting the scanner?" Geordi asked Reg.

"They gave the ship to Daystrom after whatever happened, they were planning to use it as some kind of rapid response vessel I think. There was a team refitting the engine core, we were arguing over power during the installation because they cut us off. I remember her telling the technician her name was P...Prior, as in they should check with her prior to shutting anything down."

"Let me guess, she stayed on the ship long after the crisis was over. Did she seem upset? Depressed?" Maddox asked.

"She seemed okay, cheerful actually, she'd just been promoted."

"To Lieutenant Commander, oh this is perfect." Maddox smiled.

"This was going to be her ship. A retrieval ship." Geordi smiled, "She didn't kill the AI. She did what she told you she fixed it."

"But she had to hide it from Haftel." Bruce continued.

"And then she fell out of favour, and he took the ship back." Geordi reasoned.

Mitchell turned to Sheridan and "Do you know what they're talking about?"

"I don't know, but are these two a couple?" Sheridan asked indicating La Forge and Maddox. "They're finishing each other's sentences."

"You aren't married are you?" Mitchell commented. "They'd be bickering like Barclay and Zimmerman if they were a couple."

"You know I always wondered why they had us install the scanner in sickbay and not convert this cargo hold, it would have been easier." Barclay remembered, he rubbed his thumb across an unfinished edge behind the panel. "One of my techs ripped her hand open on this sharp edge. It was a mess, I thought I was going to hurl when I saw it. We took her to sickbay and they said they had no medical staff and called the EMH." He turned and began moving boxes and examining the walls. "There's a Doctors medkit mounted by the door. If they converted the dedicated medical bay to a cybernetics lab for rogue AI's they must have given the EMH access to the entire ship." He stopped and crouched as he found what he was looking for.

"A holo-emitter." Geordi grinned and squeezed Reg's shoulders. "Taryn's right you are very clever."

"She said that?" Barclay asked hopefully.

"Yeah, but don't let it go to your head." Geordi smiled. "Dr Z? Do you think you could convince an active EMH to go into diagnostic mode?"

"Of course, I have a backdoor to all versions, but what would it achieve?"

"It was a Mark V." Barclay stated exchanging glances with Geordi and Dr Zimmerman.

"Ugh," Sheridan exclaimed, "Those guys give me the creeps."

"Creepy yes, but they can also generate their own interface terminal." Geordi explained.

"One of my more brilliant ideas." Dr Zimmerman preened. "Not the creepy part, Starfleet gave me the template." he added hastily. "I still don't see what you hope to accomplish."

"Theoretical Engineers." Geordi whispered to Reg knowingly.

"We may be able to create a diversion, keep the bridge crew occupied and send security chasing holographic ghosts all over the ship. It should keep them out of her way for a while. We also have The Doctors program now." he waved the mobile emitter. "We can give T.…Ta, Commander P...Prior a sentient ally out there if we need to."

"She's got another ally too." Geordi said, exchanging looks with Maddox and Dan, "But he's gonna be really, really pissed at her." he shook his head, "You know Reg, you're really going to have to work on saying her name if you're going to ask her out. Either that or start calling her Honey or something."

"Hhhh..honey?" Reg stammered, "God I'm hopeless."

"No you're not Reg," Geordi smiled.

"You really think I should ask her out?"

"See, you're not hopeless." Geordi grinned, "You're hopeful."

 _Authors note_ _._

 _Humbert Humbert is a reference to the character from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov._

 _Thank you to everyone following this story, especially if you've left comments. It really is appreciated._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Beverly was in her quarters on the Enterprise. Much as she loved being pregnant she loathed maternity leave. She had attended a pre-natal yoga session on the colony in the morning then visited Sickbay to see if she was needed only to be shooed away by Alyssa Ogawa. She had tidied up their quarters, replied to a letter from Wesley, written to Deanna and eaten lunch and it was only 1300 hours. She knew better than to visit the Bridge, she'd made that mistake on the first day of her leave, her ears were still ringing and with Geordi not around she couldn't even sneak down to Engineering for a chinwag. Spacedock was an even bigger drag than maternity leave. The view out of the window hadn't changed in a year which added to the overall boredom. Most of the crew had been reassigned during the lengthy repairs. The saucer was all but devoid of life but Engineering and the areas that were under repair were bustling with technicians from the Utopia Planitia ship yard. At least if they had been docked at San Francisco she could have caught up with friends at Starfleet Medical but with her due date looming she didn't want to stray too far from the ship. The last thing she wanted was to go into labour somewhere between Mars and Earth and deprive her beloved of the birthing experience.

It had been a horrible year but this pregnancy had been the one light at the end of the tunnel. She missed the meetings in the conference room, all of them together. Jean-Luc and Geordi were all that remained of the command team besides herself. Worf had left long ago, but had been a regular visitor until his elevation to Ambassador for the Federation on Qo'noS. Deanna and Will had left during the voyage back to the Sol system and Data? She still hadn't come to terms with that. She missed him, a day didn't pass when she hadn't expected to turn a corner and see him or hear his voice. He was irreplaceable and God knows they'd tried. The sixth Ops Officer in the last year had requested a transfer three days ago. She knew why, Jean-Luc had high expectations no-one could live up to. The shoes were just too big to fill. The Captain was procrastinating over his First Officer as well. Nominally it was Geordi but it was clear he didn't want the position long term, he was happiest in Engineering.

She settled onto the couch, put her feet up, balanced a bowl of popcorn on her seemingly infinite belly and turned on the Federation Subspace News Channel. It had become her guilty pleasure during her confinement. It was mostly drek but she had fun reading between the lines and speculating on the wider implications over dinner, something that made her feel more like an intelligent woman and less like a brood mare with baby brain. She was convinced that as this kid grew it was pushing her cerebrum out of her ears.

"Ugh, it's that bimbo again. Where's Gary? Bring on Gary he's sexy." She shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

 _"_ _Borak, the former Vulcan Ambassador to Earth has died today at the age of 215. The current Ambassador, Torek, praised his predecessor in a statement from the Vulcan Embassy…."_

"Oh that's really sad, I liked him." Beverly mumbled, her mouth full of popcorn.

 _"_ _There have been unconfirmed reports that an armed security force raided the Daystrom Institute on Earth last night…"_

"Holy shit! Geordi!" Beverly exclaimed, spraying a mouthful of popcorn everywhere and simultaneously choking.

 _"…_ _a source at the institute has claimed that the raid was conducted by Starfleet Officers armed with phaser rifles who entered the Turing Centre and the Advanced Technology Building and arrested a number of members of staff. It was also reported that equipment was seized from a number of laboratories in addition to the contents of the Cybernetic Vault."_

She slapped her communicator. "Crusher to Picard." she shrieked, exhibiting uncharacteristic panic.

 _"_ _Beverly? What's wrong? Is it the baby? Is it time? Merde, I'm on my way. Oh Jesus Christ!"_

"No, no no no. Put the news channel on!" she exclaimed.

 _"_ _What? Hell's teeth woman, you nearly gave me a heart attack. What is it now?"_ he shouted.

"Something's happened at Daystrom."

 _"_ _Daystrom? This had better be good Beverly."_ he warned

"Actually it's bad." she replied.

 _"_ _Believed missing from the Institute following the raid are Doctor William Mitchell, Doctor Lucy Sheridan, Captain Bruce Maddox, Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, Lieutenant Commander Reginald Barclay III, Lieutenant Ruxia Dar Ensign Daniel Ashby, and here have also been reports that Lieutenant Commander Taryn Prior was escorted from the Institute Medical Centre by six men armed with what were suspected to be Photonic Dispersal weapons. Our sources say Commander Prior, the daughter of Admiral Iestyn Prior of the Judge Advocate General's Office, appeared to be suffering from facial injuries. She is also among the missing. Included in the equipment believed taken was a device known only as B-4, The Mark-I EMH formerly from the USS Voyager and a number of…"_

"They aren't equipment you stupid bitch!" Beverly yelled at the reporter, her raging hormones exacerbating her sense of indignation.

 _"_ _A spokesman for the Starfleet Security Council denied all involvement in the incident in a statement this morning… And we have just received further reports that a similar incident has occurred on Jupiter Station. The laboratories of Doctor Tima Ootani and Doctor Lewis Zimmerman have had all equipment seized and the whereabouts of both Doctors are unknown. The Soong Institute have just issued a statement that Starfleet have declared war on artificial life. Emotive words there. Toral, over to you for commentary."_

"Jean-Luc? Are you still there?" she asked. "What the hell is happening? Who would send an armed assault team into Daystrom? It's a University for God's sake. It's full of kids."

 _"_ _Bev? I'm going to get to the bottom of this I promise you. If you feel up to it come up to my Ready Room, you can help with research."_

"I'll be there soon," she replied, "I really need to pee and I have chewed up popcorn stuck all over the bump."

 _"_ _I shan't ask."_ he replied, tiredly, _"See you both in a few minutes Mrs Picard. Picard out."_

…

In the last few minutes the comms channels had gone berserk on the bridge, calls were coming in from all over the Admiralty. Captain Picard was currently sitting in the command chair with the viewscreen in conference mode.

"What the hell is going on? Photonic dispersal weapons at the Medical Centre? They were going after The Doctor." Admiral Janeway hissed, "And Reg Barclay? We'd still be in the Delta Quadrant if it wasn't for him. He made contact, he gave us hope."

"He gave me back my son Picard, and a grand-daughter I would never have got to know." Admiral Paris intoned.

"Mr Barclay was one of my officers for eight years, I don't underestimate his importance, I assure you." Picard stated.

"What the hell was La Forge doing at Daystrom?" Janeway asked.

"I granted him leave." he paused, "There was reason to believe…"

"They've been trying to retrieve Data, haven't they?" Admiral Prior asked, "God it makes sense now."

"Iestyn?" Paris asked.

"I think we should discuss this in person, not a com channel. My place, today if you can clear your schedules. Bring what you know and we'll hash this out." Prior

suggested.

"Agreed." Janeway, nodded

"I'm unavailable." Paris said, "But please keep me apprised and if there is anything I can do just get in touch."

"I'd prefer not to leave my wife in her current condition." Picard commented.

"Bring the good doctor with you, bring anyone else who feels they have an interest or can help. More the merrier. Is 1600 okay?" he asked, and at their nods added, "I'm sending the coordinates." he snapped off the channel as did the other Admirals.

"That's decided then." he muttered under his breath.

"What's decided?" Beverly asked as she waddled towards the command chair.

"You know you were saying I never take you anywhere. How do you fancy taking a spin to Wiltshire?"

"What, the colony?" she asked. "It's pretty distant isn't it?"

"No the county."

"In England? On Earth?" she asked excitedly. "Could we stay overnight? I would love to go baby shopping in London, or Paris or…"

"We could take the yacht and try to hop the Channel if there's time I suppose." Picard grimaced inwardly, much as he loved Paris, his wife and his unborn child the thought of combining the three on one of Beverly's epic shopping expeditions made his blood run cold. Expedition was exactly the right word and he was usually the pack animal. No wonder Wesley had always looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp whenever they went ashore together. "We've been invited to visit Admiral Prior at his home. It seems he knows something he'd rather not say over a channel and wants to gather the interested parties for a discussion." he explained.

"There are interested parties?" she asked, "Other than us?"

"Well, Taryn Prior, the cyberneticist who finally got through to Data is the man's daughter, which I didn't realize until that news woman said it. You know, he was my defence counsel at the Stargazer enquiry."

"Small world." Beverly said taking the seat next to him.

"And it appears Mr Barclay has been gaining friends in high places since he left the Enterprise."

"Good for him." she smiled.

"Paris and Janeway." he told her arching a brow. "Not easy Admirals to impress."

"He did some great work on Pathfinder, I'm not surprised."

"And Admiral Janeway is as protective over The Doctor as we are over Data, if not more so. She's like a tigress with her cub."

"She's a formidable woman. I wouldn't want to cross her." Picard laughed suddenly. "What, what's funny?" she asked.

"Whoever is behind this has clearly never heard of the theory of six degrees of separation."

"What?" she asked.

"Come on, I'll explain on the way."

…

Taryn was surprised when she heard the intruder alert klaxon, but was even more stunned when she turned a corner and found herself standing toe to toe and nose to groin with a Nausicaan. She tried to back away rapidly from the intruder only to find he stepped around her and ran off down the corridor pursued by two security officers. She watched as the huge being stopped having reached a dead end turned knocked the two guards unconscious with ease and jogged back towards her.

"May I assist you?" the Nausicaan asked.

"What? Um. Well." she struggled to form a response.

"There are more of us aboard. Should you require assistance simply speak with one of us when no ships personnel are present." he replied then turned and ran away.

"May I assist you?"

She jumped and turned around to see a Romulan in full uniform.

"There are more of us aboard. Should you require assistance simply speak with one of us when no ships personnel are present."

She laughed as realization dawned. "Mr Barclay, I think I love you."

"Would you like me to relay that message?"

"No, no. Just tell him thank you." she said with mild embarrassment.

"He says 'You're welcome, we're trying to clear the way to the Computer Core. We'll keep going till they realise and shut down the emitters."

"Tell him, tell him… Don't make yourself more trouble than you're worth to them, I'd hate for them to…"

"He says, "You just take care of yourself T…Honey.'" The Romulan turned and stalked away.

"T'Honey?" she sneered, "I really hope that lost something in translation."

He was as good as his word and she made her way easily to Deck 2, slipped into the Computer Core and climbed down to the lower level. It was a simple job, made infinitely more complex because the Core was active, the ship was at warp and a high number of holographic constructs were currently running. One false move and she could either lose her diversion, crash the core or shut down any number of automated functions such as life support. She also risked permanently lobotomising her AI.

She had told everyone she had fixed the core but she had done much more than that. Something had gone wrong when the core was manufactured, something that should not be possible, something only previously seen in in four other beings from the same android family, something no-one could fully explain. Yes other ships had become self-aware in the same way The Doctor had but that was part of their programming. Bastion was alive due to the way that particular core engraved its memories and it gave her a golden opportunity. She wiped the entire core, took a set of samples, dusted off a suite of programs she had been working on for over a decade and rebuilt the entire system from the ground up. The monster that had shut off the life support and suffocated forty-six people was dead and gone and a new being was born. To mark the difference she had even changed the gender of her creation. He was a boy, he was stable and he was currently asleep.

It was time for little Bastion to wake up.

…

The holographic terminal blinked out of existence leaving Barclay sat on a box facing thin air.

"I guess they just worked out your trick Reg." Geordi said and clasped him on the shoulder.

"Do you think we bought her enough time?" he asked.

"I know she seems little and vulnerable but she can take care of herself." Geordi told him.

"I'd steer well clear of that one if I were you." Ootani advised, "Not relationship material at all."

"I'd shut up if I were you Ootani." Geordi warned, the Zakdorn had been getting on everyone's nerves from the moment he arrived.

"Clearly unsuitable, I mean she's Orion and well, Orion women."

"Weren't you listening to a word I said earlier?" Bruce asked.

"What? Oh I fell asleep, you have a very monotone voice." Dr Ootani said dismissively. "As I was saying, they're alright for a good time I suppose but you wouldn't want to wake up with one. Not that you would because they would have already made off with all your worldly goods before you've reached the vinegar strokes and even then, well who knows where they've been. You need a cast iron prophylactic if you don't want your manhood to rot away with some ghastly disease within a week. Avaricious filth ridden whores the lot of them."

"Tima!" Sheridan warned.

"No, let him carry on." Zimmerman commented, watching Barclay intently.

"As for her, she clearly has no shame at all. Did you see how she flirted with that guard? The Zakdorn kept talking, blissfully unaware of the effect he was having on Reg. Geordi had seen him flustered, nervous, neurotic, phobic and just about every variation in between but he had never seen him angry. Barclay never took his dark eyes from the offensive programmer, it would be wrong to say he was glaring or glowering he actually appeared to be uncharacteristically calm, aside from his right hand which was clenched in a fist with his thumb rubbing his index finger.

"Reg, ignore him." Geordi told his friend.

"Besides, if you were going to pick a green woman why would you want a deformed one, I mean those ears…" He didn't see the fist, but he clearly felt it. "You struck be!" he declared nasally from his new position on the floor with blood squirting from his nose.

"Get up." Barclay said coldly, standing over him menacingly.

Six armed guards burst into the bay, presumably to investigate their holographic shenanigans and Geordi watched in shock as his shy retiring friend turned on his heel and punched the lead officer in the face, decking him. Geordi seized the opportunity and grabbed the fallen guard's rifle and started stunning yellow shirted henchmen. He saw more guards enter and Barclay go down with a blow to the ribs and face with a rifle butt, before he was tackled to the floor by a female officer who sat astride his chest and punched him repeatedly in the face while everyone seemed to be fighting around him to the background noise of phaser fire. Then everything went dark.

...

Taryn's head throbbed, she had the taste of blood in her mouth and was lying face down on a bed. Her memory was hazy as to how exactly she had got here but her double vision led her to believe she was probably concussed. She tried to lift her upper body on her arms and realised she was in her underwear.

"Keep still you filthy whore." the words hissed in her ear. She felt hot breath against her neck and could smell acrid breath tinged with the smell of scotch. "You thought it was so much fun to taunt me you little bitch." he grasped her hair and pulled her head back, baring her throat where she felt the cold pressure of a blade. "Now who's the joke? Now who's going to have fun?"

It was Eden. Her mind began to clear and she remembered what had happened. She'd finished work on Bastion and he was quietly waiting for her next instructions. She had left the core and begun to look for her android ally starting with the Cyber Lab and someone had grabbed her hair from behind and slammed her face into the upright podium where her pale golden friend was standing. She never liked those units, it seemed unnatural to work on someone unconscious while they were standing upright although it did give you 360 access to their panels.

She ran options through her mind. She'd been unable to bring the holo-emitters back online, they were locked out from the bridge. She could call Bastion, but aside from flooding the room with anaesthezine there wasn't much he could do and that would knock her out just as quickly as Eden. Any other help was on the deck below under armed guard. She could get Bastion to send security, but that would draw attention to him before she was ready, she would end up in custody and they would disable the AI or worse. She wasn't even certain of what she would do as her final gambit, too much was still uncertain.

She briefly considered letting him rape her as a tactical option. An exhausted man would be significantly weaker than an aroused one. No she wasn't having that, she'd sooner rip her own throat open against his blade. Better dead than defiled.

He'd managed to exploit the element of surprise and knock her out in order to get her to what looked like the brig. She was injured, her vision was off but she had speed and strength on her side. Eden was a fifty-something man of below average height with poor muscle tone. There was a good chance she had at least twice his upper body strength if not more, she just had to pick her moment.

The hand that wasn't holding the knife was wandering into places she'd rather it wasn't and she felt his tongue in her ear. Nausea began to overwhelm her, from the head injury or revulsion she couldn't tell but she fought it off. He pulled clumsily at her panties, they were standard issue, practical and blue. What her Grandad used to call Federation Wrist-breakers.

He removed the knife from her throat and pressed his upper body against her back, he grunted as he tried to cut off her lower underwear with her beneath him. She could feel his chest and was bare and it made her flesh crawl, thankfully it appeared his nether parts were covered by underwear. She did not want to know under any circumstances what he kept down there, unless she was slicing something off.

She threw back her head violently and felt it contact his face. There was a sickening crack and he pulled away from her howling. She followed by slamming back her elbow into his sternum and wriggled out from under him. As she stood, she executed a reverse kick and caught him hard in the groin with her heel. He lunged at her in fury, holding with the blade in his right hand and his privates in the other. She caught his wrist with her right hand, the blade nicked her cheek just below her eye as she pushed it aside and brought her left palm upwards against his elbow sharply. She followed with a left cross to his jaw and he fell to the floor unconscious next to the knife which was stained with her blood. It had taken her merely seconds to overpower him. He was even an inept rapist.

 _"_ _Taryn?"_ the voice was soft and gentle, but distinctly masculine.

"Yes, Bastion." she replied, her chest heaving from a mixture of exertion and panic. A hand to her throat revealed he had broken the skin slightly and a brief inspection of her body revealed numerous minor cuts that all seemed to be clotting, he must have cut her out of her uniform.

 _"_ _Are you alright?"_

"Not really, not at the moment but I'll be okay." She wiped tears from her face with the back of her hand.

 _"_ _There has been an incident in the cargo bay where they are holding your friends. On the bridge they are debating whether to bring the Holo-Emitters back online to activate the EMH, as well as the best options for their continued confinement."_

"What? What happened?" she asked.

 _"_ _One of the humans punched the Zakdorn in the face, because he made a comment about your ears."_

"My ears? What did he say about my ears?" She found her uniform cut to shreds on the floor but affixed her communicator to her bra top. Using her uniform she picked up the knife carefully without smearing the blood or touching the hilt. She resisted the urge to sink it into the pervert's chest or carve obscenities into his face.

 _"_ _He said they were deformed. He did say other things about you. Things I'd prefer not to repeat."_ Bastion said coyly.

"I can imagine." she told him as she left the cell and activated the force field. She dropped her uniform and knife into an evidence box then sat at the desk and typed up the charges for her 'prisoner'. Assault, abduction, attempted rape, sexual assault, assault with a bladed weapon seemed to fit the bill and she listed her name as the victim. As an afterthought she added incompetency and arseholery to his list of crimes as well. She doubted her processing of the crime scene would stand up in court but to be honest she didn't care. Beating seven shades of crud out of the man and leaving him in a cell in his underpants with his trousers around his ankles was satisfaction enough. As a finale she hit the medical emergency button. She wasn't heartless after all, the man clearly required medical attention and it would add to the confusion on the Bridge. All good fun.

"So they started a fight amongst themselves. Typical." She could also guess who had thrown the first punch, although it seemed disturbingly out of character. "Barclay didn't start it did he?" she stepped into the corridor, the deck appeared to be empty and the cybernetics lab was only a short walk away

 _"_ _I have insufficient data available to identify individuals in the group by name and they are not wearing communicators."_ Bastion explained.

"Tall, brown eyes, brown hair, speaks with a stammer…adorable…"

 _"_ _That description fits the individual in question, however I have no frame of reference for adorable."_

"Bloody idiot." She would have to have words with her potential swain, although she knew it was her own fault. She'd dosed him with her pheromones when she pounced on him triggering an adrenal response increasing his aggression, although Ootani was a shitehawk of epic proportions and probably deserved it.

 _"_ _Taryn, Have I made an error of some sort?"_ Bastion asked apologetically.

"Not you, him. Sorry Bastion, you're doing a great job. I'm really proud of you."

 _"_ _I… Thank you Taryn."_ Bastion replied shyly with a catch in his voice. _"But I should also tell you that when the security guards arrived in the cargo bay things got significantly more complicated. Especially when Barclay knocked one of them out, and the human with cybernetic ocular implants grabbed his phaser rifle..."_

"Oh Christ." she exclaimed. "Is anyone badly hurt?"

 _"_ _Can you define badly?"_ he asked.

"Anything life threatening or permanent." she asked as she entered the lab and headed for the replicator. It was offline, they were probably diverting the power to the warp drive. She sighed, all the bigotry she faced and she was destined to stage a mutiny in her underwear, and it wasn't even sexy underwear. Blue standard issue sports bra top and matching briefs that were more substantial than brief

 _"_ _I have doubts that the Zakdorn's nose will ever be the same, but all bio signatures are within the norms for their appropriate species. Everyone is currently unconscious as Commander Young sealed the cargo bay and flooded it with anaesthezine gas. They didn't want their living cargo damaged in the fracas."_

"So they haven't found the mobile emitter?" she asked. "Can you activate it remotely?"

" _I believe so."_ There was a pause. _"The Doctor is confused but he is now active_."

"Okay. Please ask him if he would be kind enough to triage but keep the yellow shirts unconscious."

 _"_ _But that will include some of your colleagues?"_

"He'll know what I mean." she smiled. "I also need you to fool the bridge into thinking everyone is still unconscious and hide The Doctors photonic signature, also create a fault with the cargo bay door to keep ships personnel out of there, can you do that please?"

" _Consider it done_. _Taryn?"_ he paused as though he was trying to work out how to broach a difficult subject. _"Your bio signature is extremely atypical in comparison to your records. I am most concerned._ "

"I'm... I'll get The Doctor to check me over soon I promise." she sighed, she felt terrible and hadn't even found the strength to tell Bastion a white lie. She approached the podium and ran a diagnostic. She shuddered to think of what damage Eden might have done to her friend in the meantime. She checked the readout on a nearby console. Everything appeared to be as it was before he left Daystrom. Part of her was dreading this. She girded herself, stepped forward and pressed the switch in the small of the androids back.

He grasped the upright poles of the podium, a slightly confused expression on his face. Then he tilted his head slightly. His eyes flicking from side to side. He turned to face her.

"What have you done?" Data bellowed.

…

"Come in." Admiral Prior opened the door to the cottage. He shook Picard's hand then offered his to Beverly. "You must be Dr Crusher." he smiled, and showed them into the lounge. "Kids, sort out some refreshments and make yourselves scarce." he said and a teenage boy and girl rose to leave the room, the Admiral squeezed his son's shoulder "Oh Bronny." he said and stroked his daughters back as she wiped tears from her eyes and left the room. "My two youngest." the Admiral explained, "They're worried sick."

The doorbell rang, and one of the children admitted Admiral Janeway and a tall blonde woman with the remnants of Borg implants. Introductions were made, seats were taken and Picard was the first to speak.

"I hate to raise the subject Admiral," Picard asked Prior, "But have you considered the possibility that your daughter was part of the assault team and not a victim of it. From the reports…"

"She appeared to leave willingly," Prior said calmly and offered Beverly an extra cushion to make herself comfortable, "and please call me Iestyn." he smiled. "I know my daughter, she may have left with them in body but not in spirit. She cherishes life in all forms and would never be party to this kind of violation of civil liberties." He rubbed his long nose. "Having said that I don't know if this has anything to do with what happened but I got a call a week ago from Tony Haftel, he was furious. He had ordered her back to the Annex and she had missed her ship. She had applied to Command for a compassionate leave under Diplomatic Privilege, and he wanted details. Thanks 'Nye." he said to his son who placed a tray containing cups, a pot of tea and a cafetierre on the coffee table. "Please help yourselves."

"Diplomatic Privilege?" Beverly commented, "He has no right to even ask."

"That didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. I lied, I put on my best courtroom face and told him one of her cousins was terminally ill and Taryn was the only viable tissue match, that it came under DP as it was the Orion side of the family. It shut him up but he was far from happy about it I could tell."

"Why did you lie?" Seven asked.

"Because it was none of Haftel's business. If Taryn had broken orders she must have had a bloody good reason and… She's changed in the last year, it's like the light is fading from her eyes. She never wanted to be assigned to the Annex anyway and Haftel has consistently rejected fifteen transfer requests she's made in the last three years." he replied.

"And you didn't intervene on her behalf?" Janeway asked, and sipped from a cup of coffee. "Tough love?"

"She never asked, in fact she told me to keep out of it. She's never asked me for a favour in her entire career, that's why when she turned up on the doorstep within an hour of Haftel's call I knew something was wrong. She was out of uniform for a start, which spoke volumes in itself. We discussed the call from Haftel. She said she needed time, only a few days to do what she needed to on her current assignment and when that was done she was going to resign from Starfleet. She said all that was stopping her from resigning immediately was that she felt she had to be the one responsible for a difficult moral decision and let slip that after she resigned she could finally to do the right thing."

"She wanted to be the one who made the choice between Data and B-4 so Geordi wouldn't have to." Beverly stated. "Data would never forgive him for it."

"Of course I knew she was working on B-4's cognitive development, it's common knowledge but I didn't put it together till you said you'd given La Forge leave." Iestyn explained.

"Do you know what she meant by 'the right thing'?" Janeway asked.

"No she clammed up, took a case from the attic, kissed me good-bye and left. But the plot thickened after the conference call this afternoon." He sighed, "Number Three Son called from Memory Alpha in bits, he'd heard about Daystrom and said he'd got his sister killed because he'd breached security."

"Whoa. He thinks she'd dead?" Janeway asked.

"Cadfael is something of a drama queen, but once he calmed down he said Taryn had contacted him a few weeks ago and asked him to steal some files." Iestyn said wryly.

"Files?" Seven asked.

"Let me guess, on Data." Picard said knowingly. "That's why I gave La Forge leave, everything on file regarding Data was reclassified overnight."

"What?" Janeway spat, "Surely not everything? He's in textbooks, articles…"

"All classified." Jean-Luc told her, "His schematics, his statistics, the poem he wrote about his cat. All unavailable." He sipped his tea.

"That's ridiculous, who the hell ratified that?" Janeway asked rhetorically with a shake of her head.

"Well, Cadfael exhibited some sense for the first time in his life and told her no. But what he did do is give her a list of researchers who had submitted information requests regarding the Security Order it was classified under. Five names. Mitchell, Barclay, Sheridan, Ootani…"

"…and Zimmerman." Janeway added.

"Give the lady a prize." Iestyn smiled. "Number Three was all set to turn himself in, but I told him to hold fire. He might be useful to us."

"Did he give you the order reference?" Janeway asked.

"Security Order 347-618."

"That's impossible." Janeway stated. "I'm on the Security Council, there is no Order 347-618. It's not a valid code."

"That's definitely the correct reference." Beverly stated. I've been trying to outwit the computer all the way here, pulling at strings to see if something unravels from Data's records. The computer repeats that code like a mantra."

"We've been following a different line of enquiry." Janeway explained.

"I visited the laboratories that were involved in the raid at the Daystrom Institute." Seven explained, "They were all completely stripped of equipment and materiel. But from a combination of blood, witness evidence and a visual inspection of the grounds between the Turing and the Medical Centre I have concluded that your daughter was struck in the face in Cybernetics Lab 3, exited through the window, crossed the grounds on foot at high speed, scaling walls and traversing narrow walkways and jumped a four metre gap before being let into a third floor window of the Medical and Biosciences Building by a technician. She was seen running down the stairs to the Medical Centre, where The Doctor was working alone. Moments later the assault squad arrived, searched the building and left with Commander Prior. I scanned the area for elements and residues that are by-products of photonic dispersal and I found nothing. Wherever The Doctor is, he was certainly not dispersed at that location. At some point after Prior left the lab, Commander La Forge also received minor injuries according to the blood spatter and at an indeterminate time gold bioplast sheeting was transferred on to the thermocrete floor near the laboratory door."

"She really wanted to get to the Medical Centre before the assault." Beverly commented.

"So, she had an altercation with someone, found out they were planning to kill The Doctor, shot across the campus and then what?" Picard asked.

"If she removed The Doctor's mobile emitter his program would go offline, she could have hidden it." Janeway theorised. "But where?"

"I imagine they would have scanned for it as part of the search." Seven reasoned. "And she did not have much time."

"Would they have scanned her?" Beverly suggested. "I'd have pocketed it."

"Didn't the witness who saw them leave say she was being supported by one of the officers?" Picard asked, "Why? If she was well enough to cross the campus like a rat up a drainpipe..."

"The crafty little cow." Iestyn laughed, "She was playing for sympathy."

"She hid it on herself, maybe planned to find another place later, but then they took her with them… But again, to where?" Janeway asked.

"A ship?" Iestyn suggested. "Or facility of some sort?"

"There were no clues at the Jupiter Station." Picard stated. "I sent my Chief of Security over there. It was denuded, much like the labs at Daystrom." he stopped, "Perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way, everyone taken is either directly or indirectly involved in research into artificial life. Perhaps we shouldn't be looking at the laboratories that have had people snatched, but at those that haven't."

"There aren't many places that work on AI in the Federation. Freelancers can't get hold of materials like they used to." Janeway reasoned. "There's Daystrom and Jupiter and that's it."

"Galor IV." Picard whispered. "Have there been any reports from the Daystrom Annex?" Everyone shook their heads.

"Unless this comes from outside the Federation?" Beverly suggested.

"There is... another issue pertaining to my daughter, and it's why she was eligible to invoke Diplomatic Privilege. Her mother, her biological mother," he corrected, "is a Vulcan Orion hybrid, the product of an inconvenient pon farr. We don't advertise the identity of the twin's grandmother but contact has been maintained over the years and she has a very close relationship with Taryn." Iestyn explained.

"Spit it out man." Janeway snapped. "How bad can it be?"

"Edara Barin."

"She's the grand-daughter of the Tahedri of the Caju Barin?" Picard asked incredulously.

"Actually, she's the only grand-daughter of the Tahedri of the Caju Barin, and her favourite grand-child. Edara is disturbingly gender biased towards females." Iestyn admitted.

"Dear God." Janeway pinched the bridge of her nose. "It's all over subspace that she was kidnapped by Starfleet officers with her face bleeding. We're looking at an interstellar incident."

"I don't understand." Seven said.

"Her grandmother is the patriarch of a highly influential Orion family." Beverly explained. "Although it's more like a corporation or some would say a crime family than a real family.

"How can a woman be a patriarch?" Seven asked.

"It's a position appointed by the previous Tahedri and they can appoint whoever they please regardless of gender, they can even choose more than one person, although more often than not it goes to the eldest son." Iestyn explained.

"How influential is she?" Seven asked.

"She governs her own planet with a population of around 3 billion." Picard told her. "So what does she value more, Orion neutrality or her grand-child?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"You okay." Geordi asked and looked over at Barclay. The man looked terrible, he looked nearly as green as Taryn and he was sat against a wall with a sick bag in his hand.

"No." He spat into the bag, trying to get the taste of vomit from his mouth, his saliva was tinged with blood. "I broke a molar, my chest hurts, I think I broke my hand and I can't stop thr…." He retched up into the bag again and recoiled at the bitter taste of bile.

"How are we doing, oh." The Doctor said. "I hoped the third dose of anti-emetic would be the charm." he crouched next to him. "Are you always this bad with anaesthezine?"

"Yes." Reg slurred and wiped his face with a cloth.

"Well, I can't do much for you while you're…" he pulled a face, the man was vomiting again and trying to hold his ribs at the same time.

"Oh God." Barclay moaned and looked up at The Doctor plaintively. "Kill me?" he begged as The Doctor pressed a hypospray to his neck and he whimpered slightly at the sensation.

"Sorry. No mercy killings today." The Doctor smiled, patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

"So, why do I get the feeling that this thing for Taryn isn't new?" Geordi asked.

"What gives you that idea?" he asked, feeling his broken tooth with his tongue.

"I've never seen you hit someone over a woman before." Geordi smiled.

"I used to, all the time. I hit you more than once to impress Deanna," He looked at him, "on the holodeck of course." he chuckled and winced, "Only you didn't ever hit me back." he sighed, "I've been in love with her since I was five years old."

"How?" Geordi asked incredulously.

"My father has a painting, it's been in the family for generations. It dates back to the 19th century, long before anyone had seen an Orion or a Vulcan. It's called The Dryad of Windspirit Glade, it's not even by a known artist. When I was five she was an innocent forest creature with the gentlest face I'd ever seen. Of course, as I hit my teens I noticed the leaf bikini and the pert b...b..."

"You don't have to tell me the value of pert ba-bas my friend." Geordi teased and raised an eyebrow.

Barclay laughed, and winced again "Then I got older and I used to visit home, and there was this luminescence, a lustre about her skin that I never noticed before. I see something new about her every time I look at it."

"Sounds like one hell of a painting."

"I'd have married that painting if I could." Barclay admitted.

"Did you ever try to create her on the holodeck?"

He sighed, "Program 9. I've worked on her for decades and I've never got her quite right. She's probably why I got so interested in holography, if I'm honest."

"Did you and she ever?" Geordi asked.

"No. She just seemed too…hollow. How's that for irony?" Reg asked. "I usually find holograms more real than people." he snorted, "So I'm standing on this ship surrounded by corpses and I don't know whether I'm going to pass out or throw-up all over my boots and she's walking towards me, my Dryad, in a Starfleet uniform. I mean, what are the odds that nature could recreate her so perfectly from the gene pool, three different gene pools in fact, when I've been trying to build her with photons all my adult life and failing." he paused, "Perhaps she really is a spirit of nature." he mused, "It's like when they created that painting someone captured her soul and sealed it into a photograph of her. But she's real, and she's brilliant and funny and kind and far too young for me and I can't even say her name without stammering let alone talk to her." He sighed, "And she has a behind that makes you just ache to sink your teeth into. I had to imagine that part of her, it was against a tree in the painting so she had a lot to live up to." He smiled, and then took on a pained expression. "The part that really hurts is I keep waiting for the illusion to shatter and every day it doesn't I know I have that much farther to fall." He sniffed, "I didn't think I could feel any worse, and then she kissed me and God it was amazing but it was all about saving him." He pointed to The Doctor and rested his head on the wall.

"Aw Reg, you've got it bad." Geordi sighed and scratched his head, "She's gonna rip me new one..." he muttered to himself.

"Hmm?" Reg asked his demeanour that of a man wracked with unrequited love.

"I have two very important things to tell you, and I need you to listen carefully." Geordi said. "The first is, I don't know if you've noticed but you've stopped heaving your guts up and the second is," he struggled to find the right words, "She likes you." he blurted.

"She likes everybody." Reg reasoned. "She even likes Zimmerman."

"Well, amazing as that is you're wrong. She can't stand Eden or Haftel and there's an ex at the Annex she caught getting oral from some other woman in a closet, she's not too fond of him."

"No one likes Eden or Haftel, and that guy is clearly an idiot." he sniffed. "I wouldn't cheat on her, even for oral." He paused, "Did she say if she was serious about him?" he asked earnestly.

"Barclay! For God's sake, you're getting jealous over someone she hates and missing the damn point." he exhaled sharply, "She made a joke about the situation so I don't think it was that serious." Geordi told him. "I heard this second hand, but it was from Data so it's pretty reliable. Before you came to the lab with Spot they were talking about your matrix scanner and Data asked her if she would pass on a question for him if he reverted to B-4 and she told him you won't to talk to her."

"Oh God." Reg buried his face in his hands, clearly mortified, he started hyperventilating.

"Reg, stay with me, keep breathing, nice and slow." Geordi rubbed the man's shoulder. "So Data being Data asked why. So she told him it was because she's green."

"She thinks I'm racist?" he asked struggling for breath. "She thinks I'm a rude racist."

"Mr Barclay, focus! Now this is the good part…."

"So there is a good part? 'Cause so far it feels like a descent into hell." he said breathily.

Geordi raised his index finger. "The good part. She said it was a pity, because she quite likes you."

"She quite likes me?" Reg repeated with a frown. "What does that mean?"

"Remember she's English and imagine her saying it with a little smile. Data does a great impression of her saying it."

"Oh." Realisation dawned. "Oh my God!" he exclaimed and clasped his ribs in pain at the exertion. "She quite likes me." he gasped.

"Maybe I should have waited till the Doc fixed your ribs." Geordi said guiltily. "You don't look too good."

"No, I'm fine," he wheezed. "Did she say anything else?"

"Oh yes. Our android pal who likes everything spelled out asked her if she meant that she found you attractive."

"Okay Mr Barclay, you're my last patient." The Doctor smiled.

"No no no, not now! This really isn't a good time Doctor." he squeaked.

The Doctor scowled at his tricorder and shook his head as he held the hand scanner over the man's chest.

"I see. Perhaps you'd rather wait until you go into traumatic arrest. You have a tension pneumothorax." The Doctor told him. "Your rib has pierced your lung and it's collapsed."

"I don't care, what did she say?" he wheezed, he was starting to turn a delicate shade of blue."

"Reg, traumatic arrest as in your heart will stop." Geordi warned.

"I think it already has. What did she say? Barclay blurted breathily.

"I liked you better when you were a raging hypochondriac." The Doctor said impatiently. "Now take off your jacket and lift your shirt or the lovely Miss Prior will be weeping at your funeral." he helped him to remove his upper clothing. "You've been an idiot about her by the way. You should have asked her on a date months ago." The Doctor said bluntly. "Lie down, keep still and shut up." Barclay did as he was told. "This may pinch a little."

He placed a device just below his collarbone and activated it. It made an audible hiss and Geordi winced at the cry that emerged from his colleague as he writhed on the floor.

"I thought you said it would pinch a little!" he gasped. "That hurt like a motherf…"

"Language Reginald. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" The Doctor chided. "Sorry, I didn't have anything left to give you for the pain." he added sympathetically, "Does your breathing feel easier?"

"Yeah. It's better."

"I'm surprised you were conscious, let alone talking. I'd have got back to you sooner if I'd realised how bad you were." He held a bone fusion unit over his fractured ribs. "I'll tell her you were really brave and had a Thoracostomy Punch without pain relief if you like, she'll be very impressed. This is to help with tissue regeneration." He gave him a hypospray then applied a different device to the injured area to repair his lung. "As I was saying you're an idiot. You've literally waited for the proverbial blind man to point out what is entirely obvious to everybody who knows you both. You're perfect for each other."

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes, can you sit up? Easy, you're going to be sore for a while." he warned as he helped him lean back against the wall and looked at his injured jaw and broken tooth. "I wouldn't take it for granted though, you are seriously punching above your weight."

"Do you mean her or the fight?" Reg asked.

"Both. Although you performed a public service with that Zakdorn by all accounts. If it's any consolation I didn't give him any pain relief either, and I still had some at that point. Let me see your hand?"

"Is that ethical?" Barclay asked.

"No, it's justice. Maddox tells me if it weren't for her I'd be photonic residue on the Med Centre floor by now, I also hear she made the ultimate sacrifice by smooching with you to hide my mobile emitter in your shirt. Is there no end to the woman's heroism? This isn't fractured by the way. But your jaw is." He rummaged in the medkit. "Bastion? Is there any way I can get hold of another medkit?"

 _"_ _I am sorry Doctor, my replicative and transport capabilities are currently offline. However I have an entry for a freestanding replicator in my inventory for that bay. The model in question is able to produce basic first aid supplies. It can also provide you with basic tools including cable ties to restrain the security officers when their sedation wears off."_

"I'll get everyone looking." Geordi said and got up.

"What? Is that the thing that killed all those people?" Reg asked nervously.

" _Please don't worry Commander. Although I am aware of those events from the Starfleet historical database they occurred prior to my conception, if you will pardon the pun."_

"Pun?" Reg asked.

 _"_ _Taryn Prior is my mother. From the information contained within the Daystrom Annex database I have concluded to 98.4% accuracy that Lieutenant Commander Data is my father."_

Silence fell across the cargo bay. Ootani began to grin and opened his mouth to make some insightful comment but Zimmerman waylaid the thought with a sharp elbow to the Zakdorn's ribs.

"She's had a baby with Data, and I'm sitting in it." Reg despaired, "She even brought him back from the dead. Oh God…" he grabbed the bag and began retching again.

 _"_ _Did I say something wrong?_ Bastion asked.

"As your mother would say, no shit Sherlock." The Doctor replied as he looked at the heartbroken Barclay dry heaving into a sick bag. Perhaps he should reconsider his policy on euthanasia.

…

"Hi?" Data repeated angrily. "Is that all you have to say?"

"Look, I can explain." Taryn said.

"You can explain? Go on," he folded his arms, "Tell me how you murdered my brother. Did you look him in the face as you deleted him?"

"Data…" she pleaded tiredly. "You need to calm down and listen."

This was not going well, even by her worst estimates. He stepped down from the podium and began pacing menacingly around the outside of the podium like a lion in a cage.

"We are just dolls to you. Toys that you play your little mind games with and open us up with a laser driver when you want us to change. Does it make you feel like a God? Did it make you feel powerful when you robbed B-4 of his existence? What thought process lead you to determine that I was more worthy of this life than him?" He shook his head. "I fell for it. You kept telling me you trusted me until I trusted you. I trusted you with him. You told me he was safe with you…"

He stopped, his breath ragged and put his hand just below his central power unit, where his stomach would be if he were human and let out a choked sob.

"I have stolen his life, like a parasite or… Like Ira Graves. It was wrong, they did not let him and I have done the same." his breath was hitching as he spoke. "Deactivate me?" he begged her as tears rolled down his cheeks. "Please deactivate me? I cannot bear it." he sobbed.

She stepped forward to hold him, but he pushed her away, firmly but gently, he sniffed and wiped his tears on his sleeve.

"Deactivate me, take me to pieces and put me on the next ship to the Annex. That is an order Commander Prior." he stated coldly, "It is all you all good at after all."

"I hate to be the one to break it to you Data, but your commission died with you. I don't have to take orders from you so with that established let's get a few things straight. We are on the next ship to the Annex, something that I've spent the last 24 hours trying to stop. I've been hit in the face, had to jump in and out of windows, I've had some Neanderthal with halitosis and smelly armpits stick his tongue down my throat, I then had my first kiss with the man I'm probably in love with and I expect he thinks I only did it as a ruse. I've had my face smashed into that pole over there, been dragged unconscious through the ship, stripped and had an incompetent cyberneticist with a face like a smacked arse finger me at knifepoint, which is hardly surprising because I'm broadcasting more pheromones than an Orion whore-pit. I narrowly escape a fate worse than death by the skin of my teeth to find eight people, some of them our friends have, despite the danger they are in, started knocking lumps out of each other and turned a hostage situation into a total cluster-fuck with everyone unconscious. Now, while I appreciate that you have things you need to get off your chest, I need you to appreciate that I am standing here in granny pants, covered in blood and I really, really need you to ping your phase discriminator."

He froze. Closed his eyes and opened them wide in astonishment.

"Type L. This is Lore's body?"

"Not any more, it's yours. I told you I'd find another option for both of you." She smiled, "I told you that you could trust me."

"But, I disabled Lore's neural net permanently, how?" he asked.

She shrugged, "I'm good at fixing things, Geordi knew your neural net inside out, Maddox is far better than he's given credit for, Dan had his moments too and we had The Doctor, the best surgical hands in Starfleet on the team and Barclay, he's been great." She smiled involuntarily.

"And B-4?"

"Is his own man, he tolerated the removal of you, Lore and Lal from his net well, we fixed his code, cured his epilepsy and he seems to be thriving. I'm not going to lie, you being in his system so long has influenced him. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing." She smiled. "You look younger than him now. I had to strip every vestige of Lore's code from this body before I downloaded your software and it reset the aging program. I offered to reset his too but B-4 liked the idea of actually looking like your older brother. He's not here, he's safe at my Grandma's along with Spot. Lal's remains are there too. We had a feeling something like this would happen and we took steps to protect them."

"Thank you." Data told her earnestly, then his eyes lit up. "I still have Lal's memories." he said with wonder.

She nodded, "She's still with you, I made sure of that, but Lore." She shook her head, "he was just too big a risk. God everything is complicated, but there are some things I need to explain about your new body first of all. Lore had made some weird and wonderful modifications to himself over the years and while we made every effort to make this body the way your old one was before you blew it up we might have missed something."

"I understand."

"The other thing, Lore had integrated emotion circuitry and I couldn't find a way to bypass it before you got snatched and loaded onto this ship. You can't deactivate it, not for the time being anyway." he nodded, "Data, I have no idea how it will compare to your old chip. Things may feel…" She grabbed a table for support.

"Are you alright?" Data asked. "Taking her by the elbow and leading her to a seat.

"Yeah, I think I'm a little concussed. I've had some double vision."

"And you have not been to sickbay?"

"We don't have one and... Barclay hacked the holo-emitters to so I could, the ships AI you see so the Bridge shut them all down so no EMH. The Doctor is with them all in Cargo Bay Two, but I sealed them in because they have orders. The crew don't know he's on board. It's a mess, I don't know what to do next." she rambled, she was becoming confused.

"You will allow me to look after you, then you can give me a full situation report." he reassured her. "How long were you unconscious?" he asked looking in her eyes, he held her lower lids. "Look up for me?" He grimaced as only one eye moved upwards. "Follow my finger." he moved it in front of her eyes.

"I don't know, he cut off my uniform you know?" she giggled, "I shattered his elbow, broke his nose and kicked him in the bollocks. I had black eye and blood in my mouth when I woke up it was horrible and then he..." She frowned then looked at his face, struggling to focus her eyes. "You have a very nice bedside manner."

He smiled briefly at her compliment but he was concerned. She was concussed, she had an orbital fracture and she was becoming increasingly confused. Emotions welled within him, someone had sexually assaulted his friend and smashed her eye socket. He felt, he didn't know how he felt but he wanted to seek out whoever had done this to her and beat them to a pulp, although from the sound of it she had beaten him to it. "You seem breathless." he observed and grasped her wrist to check her pulse.

She beckoned him closer, "I've been a bad girl… I've been pushing my… pheromones for hours…" she put her finger to her lips. "Shh. I'm not supposed to… I get all hormonal…it makes me…"

"Bradycardic." Data said finished her sentence, her pulse was dangerously low and she required urgent medical attention. He swept her off the seat and laid her the floor.

" _I did try to warn her."_ Bastion said. _"Is she going to be alright?"_

"Are you the ship's AI? Data asked.

 _"_ _Yes, I am Bastion."_

"Can you beam us to Cargo Bay Two?" Data asked. "I need to get her to The Doctor."

 _"_ _All transporters are currently offline. Initiating link up to the transporter in Shuttlecraft Chekov…"_

"Taryn?" Data tried to rouse her. He checked her throat for a pulse and felt panic rise in his chest, an emotion he could not turn off this time. "No no, do not do this. Bastion? I am losing her. We need to transport now!"

…

"I am telling you Barclay, it just isn't possible." Geordi argued, "When she rebuilt the AI he was floating in pieces around the Bassen Rift. When he emerged at Daystrom he hadn't seen her for seventeen years."

"Yes, and I bet she had his schematics all over her bedroom wall at the time. I grew up looking at her, but she grew up studying him." Barclay reasoned.

"Even if we put aside the fact they would have had to alter the space-time continuum to pull off this feat of reproduction, how the hell do you envisage them actually conceiving a computer core together?"

"I'd rather not think of her like that…I."

"Perhaps you should because it's… Try thinking about it as an Engineer for five minutes instead of as a jealous prick and you might get some clarity." He exhaled sharply through his mouth, "Reg, Ira Graves called himself Data's Grandpa, that doesn't mean he was doing Noonien Soong's Mom." _"Not that I'd put it past the horny old bastard._ " he added silently. "You know how artificial beings seek out familial ties no matter how tenuous. They're like, vulnerable orphans."

"It's just… they seem so close sometimes. I've seen them in the garden at Daystrom together…"

"Whoa, that was never Data, that was B-4 and you are barking up the wrong tree my friend. She would never overstep that boundary, he's like a child. She treats him like her child."

"My mother was never like that with me." Barclay said.

"Yeah and look how well adjusted you are." Geordi pointed out. "I'll admit that Taryn and Data have formed a friendship in the last few weeks that a lot of people would take years to cultivate but they certainly aren't in love believe me. He's never been certain he's even capable of it."

"I, it's… What if he is capable of it now? Look at me, how could I compete with a fully functional android who looks half my age and is all shoulders and pecs and cheekbones. I…I… I've seen his programming, he's like some… Tantric love god."

Geordi snorted. "We're talking about the same Data who trawled the entire ship for advice when Jenna D'Sora propositioned him and still blew it big time with her. For a 'love god' he's clueless when it comes to women and you have plenty going for you that he lacks."

"Like what?" Reg asked in disbelief.

Geordi regretted heading down this path, he struggled to think of something.

"Well, chest hair for one thing."

"That's the best you can come up with?"

"I don't know, maybe she likes a man with a sternum bush." Realisation dawned on Geordi, "You have sperm."

"So I'm up against an android that can go all night armed only with body hair and the contents of my nuts." Barclay said. "What woman wouldn't jump at the chance to bear my offspring? I'm a real genetic prize with my anomalous genetic chemistry and dormant genes."

Geordi was beginning to wish they had kidnapped Deanna instead of him, she always had a way of cutting through 'Barclay Fuzzy Logic'.

"Look, I'm friends with both of you despite the fact you're two of the most exasperating bastards in the galaxy, in fact I'm friends with the three of you and I've seen her face when you walk in the room, she's never looked at Data that way. For some reason your combination of ineptitude and intelligence floats her boat."

Everyone in the cargo bay turned at the sound of someone transporting in to the room. With alarm they realised it was Data holding the lifeless body of Taryn in his arms. The Doctor was the first to move.

"She is not breathing and I cannot find her pulse." Data blurted desperately. "She was confused, I thought it was the concussion, or the orbital fracture but she went into respiratory distress and bradycardia and decompensated so quickly." he explained as The Doctor checked her with a tricorder. "The last thing she said was she had been pushing her pheromones for hours." he laid her gently on the floor and knelt beside her.

"Dear God what's she done to herself?" The Doctor whispered, as he gave her a hypospray, felt for a pulse and shook his head. He gave her a further dose of the stimulant and checked his tricorder but it continued to warble its warning.

"Come on Taryn, you still have so much to do. Babies to make, androids to build." The Doctor urged as he tried to restart the heart that lay flaccid in her ribcage. He administered more medication to her limp body, checked his tricorder and finally sat back on his heels and covered his mouth with his hand.

"What? No. You can't stop." Barclay blurted.

"There's nothing I can do, not without a Sickbay and little more than a basic first aid kit." The Doctor explained. "She has highly elevated levels of Hedroxin in her system, it stimulates pheromone production in Orions but suppresses cardiac function in Humans at high levels and she's a hybrid. Her heart just slowed down till it stopped and it just won't beat again. There's too much of the hormone in her system." He looked at Barclay, "I'm so sorry."

 _Author's Note_

 _In case you hadn't guessed I made up Hedroxin._


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Data had seen death, he'd even come to feel loss since he first enabled his emotion chip, but he had never felt anything like this, he wasn't even certain he could assign words to the emotions that were washing over him.

Barclay was holding her in his arms, he was looking at her face cradled against his shoulder, stroking her cheek with his hand. He was quiet and calm although Data suspected numb would be a more appropriate term if how he felt was anything to go by.

"Did she say who did this to her?" he asked Data as his finger lingered near her swollen eye.

"I am not sure. She said it was 'an incompetent Cyberneticist with a face like a smacked arse.' I do not know what that means." Data replied, he was still on his knees beside her. He lacked the impetus to move.

"Eden." he whispered, "It means it was Dr Jason Eden." He stroked her hair away from her face. "Did he rape her?"

"No, she said he tried, although he did… interfere with her."

"I'm going to kill him." Barclay said calmly as he looked at the shallow knife mark on her throat, it wasn't a threat or an exclamation in anger, Data knew a solemn promise when he heard one.

"I believe she has given you a head start." Data told him. "I will happily hold your coat, or him, whichever you prefer."

Barclay's lip twitched into an almost smile at his words and he kissed her chastely on her still warm lips, lips that could produce the most nurturing whispers and when the spirit moved her, oaths that would make a Romulan stevedore blush. Data had always felt an affinity with Barclay. They were both competent officers yet shared a social awkwardness that alienated them from the rest of the crew.

"Do we have a blanket or something? We should cover her…" Barclay finally tore his eyes from her face and closed them tightly as tears erupted. He buried his face into her neck, his body pulsing with wracking sobs. Her head dropped back over his arm with her lips parted. Data knew only he could hear the soft hiss of air that emerged from her, it was not within the human audible spectrum but for a picosecond hope rose in his chest that she had begun to breathe. But it was nature's cruel joke, Barclay's tortured embrace had simply forced residual air from her lungs.

He recognized the keening sound that came from Barclay's throat. He had heard it emerge from his vocal sub-processor as he worked to clear the wreckage of the Enterprise D on Veridian III. He had entered the storage locker for his lab and found a container smashed open and Lal thrown across the floor, the same expression of pained curiosity on her face as she bore when she had gone offline. He had never seen her with his emotion chip engaged, and when he did she was dead, lifeless and surrounded by smashed and damaged machinery that resembled a junk yard. Geordi had found him three hours later, rocking her against his chest much as Barclay was doing now and had to call Counsellor Troi to reason with him. Had he not trusted his internal chronometer he would have sworn that time stood still for those hours.

Data understood the mechanics of death, he knew she did not die with him in the Cybernetics Laboratory when she had stopped breathing and her heart had ceased to beat. She was dying now, in the arms of the man she was in love with, probably. How like her to add that caveat. With no oxygen circulating in her bloodstream the neurons in her synaptic tissue were losing polarity and beginning to wink out one by one like stars at dawn.

He knew death was arbitrary, he'd watched his first lover thrown ten metres across barren ground by an alien entity which stripped the life from her simply because he could. Dr Crusher had folded her into his arms and he'd carried her to sickbay for what was an agonisingly futile attempt to revive her. The parallels were striking, they were both his friend, they were both quick to defend him when others questioned his personhood. All it required was a drunken fling with Taryn and he'd be hard pushed to tell the situations apart. His second lover he'd watched dissolve in plasma coolant, he had mixed emotions about her death, especially as he'd thrown her into it himself.

He owed Taryn more than even he could begin to calculate. She had given his brother what he had failed to with his memory transfer, the chance to unlock his potential and against insurmountable odds had also found a way to restore the life Data had chosen to sacrifice for his captain, his ship.

Another parallel. He could imagine why she had felt it necessary to accelerate her pheromones if the thirteen male and two female human crewmen bound in the corner were statistically representative of the ship's demographic. She had been alone and frantic to stop the chain of events she felt responsible for and judged the danger to her health acceptable. She was a master at assessing risk and finding the advantage, it was an Orion quality and 'always look before you leap' was her credo, in her practice of parkour it prevented her from breaking her neck. He was certain she had made her decision with her eyes open in full knowledge that it could mean her death and had delayed seeking medical assistance to find her colleagues just one more advantage. Him. He wondered if she had made no plan beyond activating him because deep down she suspected it would be her final act. Pain and guilt stung in his chest as he realised she had learned to control her hormones at his suggestion. Had he kept his mouth shut seventeen years ago she would be sipping wine on Barin Prime with a string of muscular green concubini to amuse her instead of growing cold on a cargo bay floor.

Was this how Captain Picard had felt as he materialised on the Bridge of the Enterprise to see the Scimitar disintegrate knowing there was no way Data could have survived it? Was the sensation in his upper abdominal cavity why Geordi had argued with him so vehemently at Daystrom when he had asked to be stripped from B-4's neural net like viral code?

Data understood death, but he doubted he would ever understand grief, nor did he ever want to.

It was unjust. It was unfair. She had given him back his life and she deserved hers. She deserved the opportunity to build a life together with Barclay and he could not, would not accept this scenario.

 _"_ _The_ _Kübler-Ross Model of Grief. Stage 1 – Denial."_

The thought flashed into his mind in Counsellor Troi's voice. It surprised him, his inner monologue had never been interrupted in this way before. Perhaps that was what Taryn had tried to warn him about Lore's emotion circuitry.

No, he was Data, not Lore and he would not allow his unconscious mind to derail his train of thought. Taryn was not the only one with a gift for calculating risk and finding options. There were always other options, Captain Picard believed it, Taryn believed it and he was an expert at finding them in short order. He had formulated a defense for the unassailable Picard Maneuver and by all accounts, his solution to the Shinzon situation was something inspired, his death notwithstanding. It was time to apply sixty trillion operations per second to the matter in hand. He wiped the tears from his eyes. He was not a Doctor, but he did hold degrees in Exobiology and Probability Mechanics. He reviewed the entire federation database on Human, Orion, and Vulcan physiology pertaining to a 28 year old female and analyzed all known case studies of hybrids of those species in the time it took the Fourier Series to cycle his blink pattern. It took only three more cycles to run 2,358,472 scenarios and calculated the odds for her survival in each case. She was young, healthy and had excellent cardiovascular health, all things in her favour. It had been 9 minutes 24 seconds since he felt the last pulse in her throat. He knew human neural tissue can survive only 6 minutes after heart failure, Orion tissue longer and Vulcan longer still…

"Mr. Barclay, let her go." he said coldly and looked over at them. He crawled closer and took hold of her under the arms. "Move aside." he told him, but he would not let her go. "Commander Barclay stand down now!" he ordered and Reg jumped and let him take her.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor asked.

"You said you needed a sickbay to save her, what would you do?" Data asked. He leant across her, locked his hands together and started performing chest compressions on the right side of her ribcage.

 _"_ _Manual resuscitation on Vulcans and Orions is a pain in the ass and only successful one out of ten times. In Humans you're squeezing the heart between the sternum and the spine but in those guys you only have the elasticity of their ribs to play with. It's a pity nature didn't think of that before it put their hearts were their livers should be."_ Dr. Kate Pulaski, forever the optimist, he thought dryly as he recalled her words, then pushed them from his mind. Negativity was unwelcome for the next few hours.

"I'd get her in a stasis field, and filter the hormones from her blood." the Doctor replied.

"And if that is unavailable or contraindicated for the patient what is an alternative option?" Data asked.

"I'd use cardio pulmonary support and wait for the hormone to metabolize." The Doctor realized where he was going. "Mr. Data, cardiac massage is rarely effective as long term life support, especially when you are compressing the patient's liver." the Doctor said dryly. "Try her sternum." he advised and picked up his tricorder and began scanning her. "Can we get some blankets over here please?" he called to their colleagues who had moved away from the heart-rending spectacle. He picked up a hypospray and pressed it to her neck.

Data gave an embarrassed smile, recalculated the probabilities and smirked, her chances just increased by a substantial factor. He held her nose and blew into her mouth, watching her chest rise as he did so and repeated the action. He then restarted compressions in the correct place this time.

"Bastion?" Data called. There was no reply. "Bastion?" He looked at The Doctor and Barclay who was sat back on one knee with his arms wrapped around the other. "Can they have taken him offline?" Data was amazed to find he was able to interpret the man's body language far more easily than he had ever been capable of before. His position was almost foetal, and his expression was one of despair, hopelessness and bereft sorrow. Little wonder Lore knew exactly how to wound and manipulate with his words, he had an awareness that bordered on empathy. Data felt guilt at taking over Lore's body, but not in the way he had expected. It was his lack of compunction that disturbed him. He had once told B-4 that he was dangerous but he knew that was untrue, he was used and violated by someone who took advantage of his innocence, someone like Lore. Lore took the gift of the human qualities Data had craved all his life and had used them to hurt, maim and murder. He kept the company of entities that found genocide as easy as breathing. He was a raving psychopath and the universe was a safer place in his absence.

Reg was the one to speak, his voice ragged. "Bastion, I know you're upset about your mother, we all are but ignoring your father won't help anyone, least of all you. She would want you to be brave."

Data's eyes widened. "Father?" he asked. Barclay shrugged in response.

 _"_ _I… I apologize,"_ the strain in the awareness's gentle voice was audible. _"It was remiss of me not to respond. How may I help?_

"Given that this ship does not have a sickbay, what is the protocol should a crewman require advanced life support?" Data asked.

 _"_ _The Holographic Emitters and Replicator System are able to provide facilities equal to an advanced medical unit in the two Science Laboratories or any of the Cargo Bays."_

"Are the Emitters still offline?" Data asked.

 _"_ _Yes."_ Bastion replied

"It's my fault." Barclay blurted, "They shut them down because of what I did…"

"Commander Barclay, I require you to devise a way to… encourage the crew to evacuate the ship while leaving it intact and it may be that we will have to execute the strategy from this room." Data asked, mainly to give the man something to think about and distract him from torturing himself, also because he knew that ultimately the ten of them, eleven, he corrected, she wasn't dead yet and twelve if you counted Bastion, would have to take the ship.

"That, that won't be easy." he replied thoughtfully.

"Data, this isn't going to work." The Doctor warned him. "It could take hours for the levels to normalize."

"How is her synaptic activity? Her perfusion?" Data asked.

"Not bad considering she's been down for nearly ten minutes."

"Explain to me why cardio pulmonary resuscitation is ineffective as life support?" Data asked.

"You're an Exobiologist you know why, it's inefficient."

"It is true a life support system would be more effective. But we do not have that option." Data replied, performing textbook compressions with each rock of his upper body.

"It's exhausting for medical staff, you can only keep it up for short periods."

Data cast his eyes at The Doctor. "Not a factor for us."

"The patient's lungs ultimately fill up with CO2. Especially if there is no additional oxygenation and we have no additional oxygenation. I can't breathe for her, I don't breathe."

"Technically, nor do I," Data replied, "and I do not exhale carbon dioxide."

"Wait, could this work?" Barclay asked. "Can you actually save her?"

"I am not doing this simply because I lack occupation Mr Barclay," Data told him, "but I would be misleading you if I said the odds were in her favour."

"There's a slim chance but it's the only one she has." The Doctor told him, "From these readings he's an extremely efficient resuscitator but there's an awful lot that can go wrong."

"I don't know why you're bothering, you can always pick up another one at the slave market." Ootani suggested. "Short ones are quite cheap I gather, but if you go much shorter than her there's a midget premium."

Barclay went to stand but Geordi's hand on his shoulder restrained him and handed him some blankets.

"I'll handle this Reg." La Forge grabbed the Zakdorn by the front of his shirt and moved him away from Barclay on his tiptoes. The air turned blue as he proceeded to read the offensive man the riot act and warned him to keep away from Barclay if he valued his life.

"What happened to his nose?" Data asked, not missing a beat.

"I hit him." Barclay said coldly, helping The Doctor cover their patient to keep her warm.

"If I still held my rank I would recommend you for a commendation." Data told him.

"You should have aimed for his throat, easier on the hand." The Doctor told him. "If we were lucky you'd have fractured his larynx and we'd get ten hours of peace not that it stopped this one making a nuisance of herself at the Med Centre."

"What?" Barclay asked.

"Nothing slip of the tongue." The Doctor said casting a look at Data and mouthing "I thought he knew."

"She fractured her larynx? How?" he asked, his tone saddened and concerned.

"No, she just made a nuisance of herself." The Doctor lied.

Barclay looked between Data and The Doctor. "Why do you look guilty?" he asked Data.

"Guilty? No, I do not feel guilty." Data lied badly. "She told me she kissed you, how did that happen?" he asked to change the topic then dipped his head to her lips, probably not the best timing in retrospect.

"Don't change the subject." Reg snapped.

"She wanted to slip him something." The Doctor explained.

"Her tongue?" Data asked. He had intended it as an innocent, literal question, then snorted as he got the joke. He finally understood all the times Taryn had curled up with laughter at something he'd said. He missed her laugh already, it would be a shame if they never got to laugh together. "Her name was Debbie, not Flagrante. That is a good one." he chuckled.

"What?" Barclay asked.

"He just got a dirty joke Taryn told a week ago." Geordi explained, "You okay Data? Not going into some weird meltdown like with your old chip."

"No Geordi, I am fine." he replied brightly.

"How is she?" La Forge asked.

"Synaptic activity is holding steady, no sign of CO2 build up, peripheral O2 saturation could be better, but I can live with it, more importantly so can she. Hedroxin levels down by .38%" The Doctor said, "But we have a very long way to go."

"So it's working?" Reg asked, stroking her hair.

"I will not let her go if I can help it Mr Barclay, I owe her an apology. I reacted badly when she activated me I thought…I said some very cruel things that she did not deserve and she just stood there and let me and I was so angry I did not notice how hurt and unwell she was. I was an…" Data made the sign for asshole with his thumb and forefinger like an inverted OK sign with his palm facing up as he bent to breathe for her, "and I never thanked her for teaching me twenty-one new words in sign. I thought I would never use them because they were obscene."

"I was livid with her when I was activated in here. The last thing I remembered was her ripping the emitter from my arm. I didn't realise it saved my life."

"I don't think I ever said more than ten words to her in a row and I stammered most of them." Reg added on the topic of regrets. "I can't even say her name because I get all flustered. But at least I didn't fracture her larynx." Barclay added archly.

"It was an accident, I would never intentionally hurt her." Data blurted and frowned. "Although I may have just fractured her rib."

"I can fix that." The Doctor reassured them, he was organising his supplies and equipment, such as it was, while keeping a watchful eye on his tricorder. "Keep going, we can pause later if need be and I'll fuse it."

"It wasn't his fault Reg," Geordi explained, "he was having a flashback and mistook her for a Borg."

"Did she forgive you?" Barclay asked.

"No." Data replied.

"She said there was nothing to forgive." The Doctor said poignantly.

Several silent minutes passed as Data kept hope, and Taryn alive and The Doctor began to treat the cuts and facial injuries she had suffered.

"I didn't know she knew sign language." Reg commented breaking his silent vigil over her.

"Her twin brother is hearing impaired, and the speech centre of his brain is malformed." Data explained.

"Ah yes, Emlyn. He's a nice young man, quite charming. We attended one of his concerts together a few weeks ago." The Doctor stated. "He's a concert cellist. He communicates and plays by telepathy, it's quite remarkable. Unfortunately she's even less telepathic than this tricorder and they have to sign to each other."

"I once heard him play Beethoven and Klingon Opera on a Vulcan Lyre when he was a child. I am not surprised he chose a career in music." Data commented, "Requiring the mind of an audience to be able to hear what you are playing must be a significant disadvantage."

"Yeah," Geordi said, "I feel for the guy, apparently their grandmother doesn't want to know him because he's damaged goods, he isn't green and he's a he. Taryn feels terrible about it because the woman dotes on her. She even tried to appoint her as the next Tahedri when she was ill a few years back."

"You're kidding?" Barclay asked incredulously.

"Fortunately she didn't die, just as well as Taryn literally told her where to shove it." The Doctor told him, "Working at the Annex wasn't part of her career plan, so you can imagine how she feels about being elevated to the role of Tahedri of the Caju Barin."

"So she's the Orion equivalent of a princess and her grandmother owns her own planet. That isn't intimidating in the slightest." Barclay said nervously. "And she has a twin, I didn't know that. I didn't even know she had a brother." He snorted "Next you'll be telling me her father is an Admiral or something. That would be truly terrifying."

Data, Geordi and The Doctor exchanged worried glances.

"At least we know he hasn't been stalking her." Geordi commented.

"Doctor, her trachea is deviating." Data warned as he rose from her lips.

"Stop compressions." The Doctor said.

"Is that bad?" Barclay asked, a panicked expression on his face.

"Just a hiccup." The Doctor told him and placed a device below her collar bone.

"Wait, that really hurts." Reg winced as the device hissed. She didn't react.

"They say a couple that plays together stays together, I wonder if there's an equivalent saying for sharing a tension pneumothorax." The Doctor joked, applying the same treatment he had to repair Barclay's collapsed lung and rib fracture. "She's not feeling any pain Reg, I gave her a sedative. I think she can hear you though, her synaptic levels are spiking whenever you speak. You're up Data."

"Is that a good sign?" Barclay asked.

"Well, either she likes the sound of your voice or she thinks you're an…" The Doctor made the sign that Data had earlier.

Data smirked and struggled to compose himself. They were going to be here a while, perhaps it was time to start considering their options. "Were I in command of this vessel, I would have stormed this cargo bay by now." Data stated as he resumed chest compressions. "Bastion? Are you able to provide me with a status report on the ship?"

 _"_ _I am currently on course for Galor IV at Warp 9.726. In order to maintain that speed, power is being diverted from the Replicator grid, Transporters, Holographic Imaging Systems and life support on Deck 4, Cargo Bays One Three and Four, Laboratories 1 and 2, the Main Hangar and Hangar Decks One and Two."_

"They are really thrashing that engine." Geordi commented, "What's the hurry?"

"Bastion, check long range scans for any ship on a pursuit or intercept course." Data requested with a frown.

 _"_ _There are no ships in scanner range. Shall I continue with my report?"_

"Please." Data replied.

 _"_ _If I may voice an opinion, there is something wrong with the distribution of personnel on board. There is only a skeleton bridge and engineering crew and only one science officer and a civilian scientific advisor, and I am classified as a science vessel. The remainder of the ships compliment is comprised of security officers. Engineering staff are currently divided between maintaining speed and endeavouring to bring the holo-emitters and EMH online in the brig. It appears when they shut down the emitters they failed to realise Commander Barclay was using the root file from the EMH and corrupted his construct."_

"Who are they holding in the brig?" Data asked.

 _"_ _Dr Jason Eden, one of the security officers with training as a medic has doubts that he is able to adequately treat his injuries. He is currently having great difficulty placing the doctor's arm in a splint as his elbow is hinging in the wrong direction and he is not cooperating. He is also suffering from a mandibular fracture, has four ribs dislocated from his sternum, a fractured nose and a testicular torsion."_

"Is that the head start you were talking about?" Barclay asked, at Data's nod he added. "If she survives this and is insane enough to want me in her life, remind me never to piss her off."

 _"_ _If I may venture a further opinion, Commander Young is allowing his personal feelings to influence his command decisions, he has been having repeated arguments with Lieutenant Preston in his ready room regarding unresolved feelings he has for Taryn."_

"What? What unresolved feelings?" Reg blurted.

 _"_ _He is ignoring the advice of his Bridge officers that the anaesthezine gas in this bay would have dissipated by now, yet everyone here appears to still be unconscious on sensors because I have adjusted the parameters. He has all security officers conducting a search for her as we speak. He is preoccupied with her whereabouts and has had to be restrained from assaulting Dr Eden who incidentally claims that she seduced him."_

Data shook his head, "I suppose smashing her face into a pole, dragging her unconscious through the ship and then cutting off her uniform with an open blade is his idea of a strip tease." Data blinked, facetiousness was a new experience.

"Why so much security? Barclay asked. "They're only holding eight of us."

"Perhaps they aren't just holding us." Geordi reasoned.

"But, this isn't a big ship, its Defiant Class, four decks and about a third of it has no life support." Barclay argued. "They don't have anywhere to put anyone else."

"Unless they do not need to breathe." Data argued. "An android or cybernetic construct?"

"Or they are in memory storage." Reg reasoned, "A hologram?"

Data's face took on a thoughtful expression. "Can everyone tell me what projects they are currently working on?" Data asked in a loud voice.

"I've been on secondment to Daystrom working on replicating The Doctor's mobile emitter." Barclay explained.

"The Emergency Command Hologram." Zimmerman replied.

"A new neural interface for artificial limbs and organs." Mitchell shouted.

"I've been working on a crystalline based memory module." Lucy added.

"My research is my own business!" Ootani snapped.

"He's working on a heuristic program for training, war games that sort of thing." Zimmerman replied impatiently and the two men began arguing amongst themselves.

Barclay shuddered, "They're trying to build something." They stole our research weeks ago… why do they need us?" he mused. "Although I doubt they'll get the emitter to work from the theoretical model they took, it's flawed."

"The rest of us have been working on you. Or rather B-4." Geordi said, "In fact aside from Dr Crusher, it's everyone alive with experience of working with Soong-Type androids."

For the first time since he started providing life support for Taryn, Data missed a beat.

"No it is not." Data said with a worried expression on his face. He kept working but his chest began to hitch. "Bastion, what route did you take to get to Earth?" Data asked, although he feared he knew the answer.

 _"_ _I was inactive at the time but navigational records say that I travelled from Galor IV and travelled to Earth via Atrea IV."_

"Doctor, take over please?" Data asked, panic waved over him and he rose to his feet. "Geordi…" The Doctor handed the tricorder to Barclay and took over the compressions.

"Bastion, is Dr Juliana Tainer on board?" Geordi asked placing his hand on his friends shoulder.

 _"_ _Dr Juliana Tainer is in the Cybernetics Laboratory."_

 _"_ _What is her status?"_ Data asked frantically.

 _"_ _Deactivated. She is in storage unit 2."_

"They know!" Data said in alarm.

"Know what?" Barclay asked.

"They deactivated her, they know what she is and they deactivated her." His eyes widened in horror, "Or they injured her and her protective circuit engaged!" He was becoming hysterical. "They have my mother and they know." He looked at Geordi, "What if they tell her Geordi?" he pleaded, "She will not be able to bear it." He placed his hand on his chest, breathing fast. "They are taking her to the Annex, you heard the things they do there, the things they wanted to do to Lal."

Geordi grabbed his friend by the upper arms. "Data, calm down. Data look at me." Geordi shook him. "We will think of something."

"She is more advanced than any of us, they will take her apart." Data said plaintively.

"No they won't." Barclay stood and handed the tricorder to Data. "You just look after mine and leave yours to me." He strode across the bay to the panel he had removed earlier and yanked it off again.

"Need a hand." Geordi said as he joined Reg at the panel.

"I need you to stand back." Barclay asked as he pulled his sleeve over his hand and stood on tiptoe to reach up high inside the wall. "You might want to cover your eyes."

"What? No!" Geordi shouted, as Barclay placed his forearm over his eyes and yanked something within the wall.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Picard pressed his crooked forefinger to his lip as he examined the screen. He was searching sensor records for any ships that left Earth orbit following the raid and correlating them to the sensor records from Jupiter Station. It was, quite frankly a balls-ache of a job and it was at times like this he really missed Data or Wesley or any other likely candidate he could palm the task off on. Janeway was in another part of the yacht making calls to fellow members of the Security Council, trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious Order 347-618, Seven of Nine was searching for reports of other missing scientists or engineers while Beverly monitored the Subspace Network for any news. They had landed in a field behind the Prior home and Iestyn was currently in his home office in discussion with a friend who worked in civil law to explore the possibility of a writ of habeas corpus for their missing people.

The Captains eyes lit up as he realised he had found something.

"Jean-Luc," Beverly said from across the room, "There's been an incident on Atrea IV, Pran Tainer is dead."

"What? How?" He wheeled over to her terminal.

 _"_ _The noted Geologist suffered a cardiac arrest following severe injuries he received a week ago as he defended his wife from an armed assault by officers of unknown origin. Dr Juliana Tainer is still missing following the incident, she was reported to have been carried from their home in the early hours of the morning…"_

Picard snapped off the audio.

"That's… God how awful." Beverly put her head in her hands. "This can't be a coincidence surely?"

"I need to contact the Atrean authorities." Jean-Luc told her, "I believe I know what ship they are on and they may be able to confirm it."

"If they used the same ship." Beverly commented.

"The USS Bastion was docked at Jupiter Station when Zimmerman and Ootani were taken and in orbit around Earth at the time of the Daystrom assault. It's the only correlation I can find. The computer is running a search of the tracking station data. We should be able to follow its course through Federation space."

"The Bastion?" she frowned, "I don't know that ship.

"Defiant Class." he told her, "From what I can tell it's a science vessel."

"That can't be right. Defiant class ships don't have science labs. They barely have medical facilities. Two small med labs and a sickbay you couldn't swing a cat in." Beverly told him. "You know, with Juliana Tainer missing, Geordi and the team that worked on B-4 that's everyone who's worked on Soong-Type androids."

"What about the crew of the Trieste, the people who inspected him at Daystrom after he was found?"

"The Trieste lost most of their senior team at Wolf 359 and Dr Mallory died around a month ago, old age." she replied. "Chief Argyle worked on Lore of course, but he died in that accident in Engineering."

"And you." Picard said, "You worked on him."

She shrugged in response. The computer trilled to indicate an incoming message and Picard brought it up on screen.

"Merde." he swore, "There's been an explosion aboard the Enterprise."

…

He tried to move but the pain stopped him, it felt as though every cell in his arm and chest were on fire. He opened his eyes, squinted at the brightness then closed them again.

"Consider yourself lucky to be alive." The Doctor told him and he felt the sting of a hypospray in his neck. Instantly the pain started to ease. "You've been unconscious for over thirty hours."

"Did it work?" he asked trying to open his eyes but blinking in the light.

"It sure did Reg." Geordi told him. "Next time you have an idea like that you might want to run it past one of us."

"You'd have talked me out of it."

"Damn right I would." La Forge responded angrily. "That was the stupidest move I've ever seen. And possibly one of the most inspired." he added.

He had done precisely what they tell you not to do in all the manuals. He'd put an active optical cable into a power coupling. The particular optical cable he had chosen ran from the torpedo bank on the deck above to the safety control system. He'd hoped the resulting power surge, aside from a blinding flash of light, would simulate the signal caused if a torpedo in the bay had armed itself and was going into overload. Standard procedure would be to beam the offending torpedo off the ship but some bright spark had opted to take the transporters offline and diverted power. Also they would have to know which torpedo in the bank to beam, not easy as the surge would also crash internal sensors. The only option for the crew would be to abandon ship or wait for the offending torpedo to detonate along with the rest of the bank and probably half the hull. He knew the surge would also short him out of course, the jolt probably propelled him halfway across the hold. Not a prospect he relished but it was the only strategy he could come up with.

It hadn't taken long to decipher what Data was getting so agitated about. Yes he understood the significance of what he was saying but it was clearly a family matter, none of his business. The point was someone he adored was counting on Data to keep them alive and Reg felt useless and helpless just watching. He had recognised what was happening to Data, he'd had enough anxiety attacks himself to spot the signs. He knew he should have told them about the plan but he knew what would happen. Data would have insisted on doing it himself like the noble idiot he is. Taryn would either be dead, or Reg would have to explain to her how his stroke of genius had fried her friends neural net within hours of his reactivation.

"Wait, why aren't you with her?" he asked The Doctor, trying to sit. "Has something happened?" He noticed with alarm there was a large medical device in the centre of his chest humming away and below that he was covered by a blanket.

"She's currently doing much better than you are." The Doctor told him, pushing him back on the bed. "She's sleeping off the sedation and you have tissue damage that needs repair. Hold still if you don't want a permanent arrhythmia." he activated a tissue regenerator and held it over his damaged hand and arm. "Thanks to your stupid heroics we got the emitters back online and we were able to get her on life support." The Doctor told him, "Although at one point we thought we were going to lose both of you."

"You nearly lost her? What happened?"

"I couldn't be in two places at once, that's what happened. Fortunately Data was willing to practice medicine unqualified. You owe him your life."

He tried to get up again, "I need to see her."

"You need to hold still." The Doctor warned, "Look to your right." he added gently.

He was still in the cargo hold but there were now holographic medical bays in place. In the next bay, sleeping soundly under a blanket was his Dryad, the rise and fall of her chest was deep and regular. She looked beatific and tranquil and more to the point, alive.

"Data's mother?" Reg asked.

"Data is with her." Geordi told him, "Reg, I don't know how much you understood of what he said…"

"Enough to know I should forget what I heard." Barclay told him.

"It may be too late for that." Geordi replied sadly, "Reg, there is something you need to know." Geordi said rubbing the back of his head and exchanging glances with The Doctor as he worked on him. "Not everyone evacuated."

"How many?"

"Well, we stunned the guys in here and dumped them in the last lifepod. And then we found they'd left Eden in the brig and Young was prowling the ship, he wrecked the warp drive then started looking for…" Geordi stopped himself.

"He was looking for her." Reg said sadly.

"He's saying, well it sounds like there's something pretty serious going on between them. I'm sorry, I'd never have encouraged you if I'd known…"

"That's… Thank you for telling me." he replied softly as The Doctor scanned him with a tricorder.

"You need to stay here for a while, this will need another treatment." The Doctor told him, pointing to his arm. He removed the device from his chest, "Your heart's as good as new." Reg snorted, it certainly didn't feel like it. "I need to go and have a look at a testicle in the Brig." The Doctor sighed, "Sometimes I hate the Hippocratic oath, but until Dr Zimmerman gets the on board EMH up and running I'm the only Doctor." He handed Reg a gown to put on. "I'll be alerted if there's a problem by the monitors but I don't foresee anything, you both just need rest. Commander La Forge is going to stay with you."

"You don't have to, I'm sure you're needed in Engineering, I'll probably try and get some sleep anyway." Reg said softly as he gingerly pulled on the gown.

"If you're sure?" Geordi asked looking at The Doctor for support.

Reg had already rolled onto his side with his back to Taryn, pulled his blanket over himself and curled into a ball. The Doctor motioned to the door with his head and they both walked towards the corridor.

"I think he needs some time to lick his wounds." the Geordi whispered.

"Perhaps." The Doctor replied in a low voice.

As the door closed behind them Barclay began to softly cry himself to sleep.

…

He woke to the sound of a low moan from behind him, and the sound of someone in discomfort. He turned to see her press her hand against her sternum and try to sit up.

"I…I'll call The Doctor…" Reg told her.

"No, I'm okay, I just… I feel like an elephant has been using my chest as a trampoline." She looked over at him and her eyes widened in alarm. "What happened to your hand? It looks like you stuck it in a power coupling. Are you alright?" she asked, her face concerned.

"I… It's nothing." he said looking at the reddened skin on his lower arm that resembled an extremely bad sunburn and was quite frankly, agonisingly painful despite the pain relief he had been given.

"I thought I told you not to cause too much trouble." She laid back against the pillow and looked at him.

"I thought I told you to look after yourself." he said averting his gaze.

"Touché." she replied with a benevolent smile.

He felt as though he had a sucking chest wound that had nothing to do with his injuries. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, he wanted her to stop being so nice to him and go and find her boyfriend, wherever the bastard was. He didn't even think he could look at her.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, realising they were in the cargo bay. He could feel her eyes on him, he closed his and turned his head from her.

A few moments passed and he heard her grunt and shuffle then her feet drop on the floor.

"You shouldn't get up, you…" he protested.

"I can take a hint Barclay, I'm clearly making you feel uncomfortable so I'll go. I'm sorry if my kissing you was embarrassing but… I'll just go." he looked up to see tears shining in her eyes as she turned to leave and heard her sniff as she walked towards the door in a surgical gown.

He didn't care, in that instant he realised he didn't care if he had to share her. If the other guy didn't like it he'd have a damn fight on his hands. He didn't know how it happened, he didn't notice the pain, his first conscious thought was reaching out with his uninjured arm and touching her shoulder, turning her to face him and bending to capture her lips in the deepest, most intense kiss he had ever experienced.

"Don't go." he whispered and kissed the tears from her upturned face stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Don't ever go."

She returned his kisses enthusiastically, and he revelled in the encouragement. With his injured arm still at his side he bent further and placed his other forearm under her bottom and lifted her, not wishing to squeeze her sore ribs. She sighed as he pressed hot kisses to her neck and throat. He shivered at the sensation of her strong hands as she gripped his shoulder, his back.

"I see you two seem to be feeling better." The Doctor said with an arched brow and a hypospray in his hand.

"Um, Doctor it's…" Reg said, as he returned her to the floor but still held her close.

"Don't tell me, it's exactly what it looks like." The Doctor said and walked past them. "Just give me time to check you both over and finish healing that arm and you two can get out of here." he shook his head, but he was smiling once he was out of their line of sight. "Did our hero tell you what he did?"

"No?" she asked with interest.

"He got the crew to evacuate the ship. Not being an engineer I don't fully understand the details but it apparently involved an optical cable, a power coupling and a torpedo bank."

Her mouth fell open in horror, she struck him in the shoulder with her palm.

"Ow, what was that for?" Barclay protested, although he knew she was just making a point. Had she intended to hurt him she'd have probably shattered his collar bone and she had restricted the blow to his uninjured side.

"Are you out of your mind?" she asked angrily, "You could have been killed!"

"I could have been killed? I had to watch while he declared you dead!" Barclay countered, pointing at The Doctor. "If it weren't for Data not giving up on you we'd be firing you into space in a torpedo casing!" he bellowed.

"I've requested to be scattered." she snapped.

"Oh that's so much better. I'd have got to watch the woman I love's molecules sprayed all over space by a damn machine that scares the shit out of me!"

"You love me?" she asked softly, her mood suddenly shifted.

His mood shifted too, "Well, yes. But that's not exactly the way I planned to tell you about it." he said sullenly. His face contorted with emotional pain, "I really thought I'd lost you. I…"

She grabbed him by the front of his gown, stood on tiptoe and pulled him down to kiss him.

"Ahem." The Doctor said after a few moments. "I hate to interrupt this touching moment but I don't have all day." he said sternly. They walked back to the biobeds and sat on one of them like a pair of naughty children. "How are you feeling?" he asked Taryn.

"Wonderful," she sighed gazing at the man next to her then appeared to realise that wasn't what The Doctor had meant. "Well, my ribcage is sore and my sternum feels sort of bruised, but otherwise I feel fine." she turned away and gave an embarrassed smile that revealed dimples in her cheeks.

"I'm not at all surprised." The Doctor said, scanning her and pressing buttons on his tricorder. "Between us Data and I performed CPR on you for over an hour, I expect you'll be sore for days." he told her and snapped shut the tricorder. "Now listen up both of you, as Acting Chief Medical Officer on this ship consider this an order. The race to reach the afterlife ends here and now. If either one of you comes back to me with so much as a hangnail I will put the pair of you into stasis for the remainder of this voyage. Do I make myself clear?" They both nodded in agreement silently. He turned to Taryn, "You can go."

"Great," she said brightly. She kissed Reg on the cheek and jumped down from the bed."

"You're going?" he asked.

"Just to find some clothes and a shower. I smell like my grandmother's carpet after Pochar." she turned to The Doctor, "Take good care of my man Doctor." She smiled and left the cargo bay.

"Did you hear that?" Barclay smiled as he was given a hypospray, "I'm her man." Then he frowned, "What's Pochar?"

"It's an Orion Festival it's… You'd be happier not knowing." The Doctor told him, inspecting his arm and hand. "I was worried you'd lose fingers but this is healing well, I don't even think it will scar." He applied the tissue regenerator.

"Fingers? I nearly lost my fingers?" Barclay blurted nervously.

"You nearly lost your entire arm from the shoulder and we had Bill Mitchell on standby to build you an artificial heart." The Doctor lectured, "Fortunately you responded extraordinarily well to regenerative therapy. Can you make a fist? That's good." he said and deactivated the device. "Within an hour or so you'll never know it happened." he applied the hypospray he had carried in with him to his upper arm. "Come and see me in a month for your next shot."

"What? What for? I… I…Is my arm going to wither away or something?" Reg asked with alarm.

"No. It might be an idea to get to know your new girlfriend before you hear the pitter patter of tiny green feet."

"Wait, how did you know?" Barclay pointed at the door and the hypospray with a confused expression on his face.

"I predicted that with the two of you alone together nature would take its course. I have also seen and heard the lovelorn ramblings of Commander Young in the Brig. Having known her longer than Commander La Forge I fancied your chances to be significantly higher than his estimate."

"Do you really think our babies would be green like her?" Barclay smiled broadly.

The Doctor simply rolled his eyes.

…

Taryn peered at the information module carefully under the microscope and curled her lip.

"Sorry Data, I just don't know." She drummed her fingers on the counter. "You could try hacking it via the holographic interface but to me it looks like its toast."

He rested his elbows on the counter and dropped his head into his hands. She had tried to warn him that his emotions may be erratic and feel strange, that he needed time to adapt, time that this situation wasn't affording him.

"If we cannot return the module, she will become aware of her true nature when we reactivate her."

She rubbed his upper arm. "I wish I had a better answer for you."

"Geordi and I both came to the same conclusion." he responded, "My father was so adamant she should not know, that she should live out her life believing she was human."

"No offence Data, but perhaps he should have thought of that before he recreated her as an android. It was a rather selfish thing for him to do." she commented.

"Selfish?"

She paused, "What were you thinking when you revived me?" she asked.

"I did not want you to die." he replied with a frown.

"Why?"

"I wished for you to have the opportunity to live out your life."

"Ah, but you said he built her because he couldn't bear to be without her. Do you see the difference?" she asked.

"Yes, but I am not in love with you." Data replied. "If Commander Barclay…" Data stopped suddenly, a guilty expression on his face.

"It's alright, he told me. Carry on." She smiled.

"If Commander Barclay recreated you as a sentient hologram following your death would you consider that selfish?"

"Yes. Understandable, but yes. I would consider it selfish." she replied.

"Do you believe my mother would understand?"

"I don't know her, but if it were me. I imagine I'd be incandescent with rage at your father, for a while at least, but I would ultimately come to terms with it. I'd have to, what choice would I have?"

"Do you believe she would feel revulsion or horror at what she is?"

"I don't know. Would your feelings be hurt if she did?"

He paused thoughtfully, "I did not tell her when the situation arose last time because, although her knowing would mean I would no longer be alone in the universe, it was not in her best interests to know."

"Perhaps you need to accept that you no longer have that choice. The dilemma now is whether to reactivate her or pretend to everyone that she died, and the secret may already be widespread knowledge for all we know." she explained. She took his arm and turned him to face her. "You aren't responsible for the autocratic decisions Noonien Soong made on her behalf. She will understand that." She smiled gently, "And you didn't answer my question."

"I believe my feelings would be hurt." he admitted reluctantly, his expression clearly one of anguish. "But I would understand."

 _"_ _La Forge to Data."_

He tapped his communicator. "Go ahead Geordi."

 _"_ _We could do with a hand in Engineering if you're available, I'm having problems getting subspace radio working."_

…

Barclay also showered and dressed and been told that Taryn was busy helping Data with Dr Tainer. He'd decided to head for Engineering to see if there was anything he could do, but he felt drawn to the Brig. He meant it with all his heart that he would kill Jason Eden, and he still meant it. He knew the man hadn't been responsible for her brush with death but he had spent time injuring and abusing her when she had so little of it left. She spent what could have easily been her final conscious moments in pain both emotional and physical thanks to that man and he loathed him for it. But it wasn't him that he wanted to see, he wanted to check out his competition. He regretted it as soon as he arrived. The man was tall, broad shouldered, narrow hipped and muscular. He resembled the example picture of a human male that they send out in first contact literature. His strong jawline had the blue quality of a man who needed to shave twice a day, his wavy hair was the colour of jet and combed back into a quiff and his steely blue eyes held an air of confidence. If he had been creating a holodeck character of the perfect spacefaring swashbuckler then this would be the guy. If Barclay felt threatened by Data's pale and interesting charms what hope did he have against this perfect specimen of manhood? The Doctor fancied his chances his ass.

The thing that puzzled him was how come no one seemed to know anything about this bronzed Adonis? Between Geordi, Data and The Doctor they seemed to know everything about her and yet he saw the look on Geordi's face when he had to admit what he'd discovered. He knew nothing about this man and to be honest, Taryn just didn't seem the type to play away despite Ootani's racist assertions. Could this be the halfwit that had cheated on her? Maybe the feelings were only one-sided and Young merely had the desire to win her back? Well, Barclay was the one she was kissing while this guy was cooling his heels in the Brig and that gave him the advantage. Desperately as he wanted to know what was going on he wasn't going to press her for information and risk alienating her, not yet anyway.

She looked up and smiled at him as he arrived in Engineering and he felt as though he'd walked into the sunny side of the street on a cold day, she was sitting beside Geordi at a console, Data was standing behind them and they all seemed puzzled. Elsewhere in the room Dan, Maddox and Bill were looking at other schematics and scratching their heads.

"Barclay, you're our resident hero from Starfleet Communications, perhaps you can solve this?" Geordi said, "Somehow subspace radio is out but I can't find a damn thing wrong with it, I'm running out of things to look for."

He looked at the screen, "This circuitry is a little unorthodox. What have they been playing at?"

Geordi shrugged, "Half the ship's been jury rigged." Geordi said impatiently and looked at Taryn.

"Don't look at me, everything was fine when Haftel took him back." Taryn protested. "Even then I had to fight Haftel every step of the way. He wouldn't let me have a Medical Officer and it was his brain-child to do away with Sickbay. I wanted to covert Cargo Bay 2 into the Cyber Lab. The power taps are all down there anyway."

Barclay smirked, great minds think alike. "I think we should look at the attenuator."

"Yeah, but for some reason they've moved it from this Jeffries tube." he pointed to the screen, "To halfway down this conduit where we can't get at it, we'd have to strip down the entire…"

"Nah." Taryn said "You strapping fellas might not be able to get down there but I'd fit." She stood, fixed a torch to her sleeve and picked up a tricorder and a toolkit. "I'll go and have a look."

Minutes later Barclay was feeling more than a little hot under the collar at the view down the conduit. He'd watched her wriggle in on her belly with a wonderful view of her peach-like behind. He didn't really like the idea of sharing that behind at all, but if that was the price of being with her so be it. He still wondered what The Doctor had meant about his chances, he knew they had been friends for some time. Perhaps he should ask sooner than later, before he got any more attached, although he doubted that were possible.

"Er, T..Taryn?" he asked as he sat at the opening with his arm resting on his knee. "I wanted t…to know…" he stopped.

"What, ask me? You can ask me anything you like." her voice echoed.

"It's…Commander Young has been saying things…"

"What still? I thought he'd be over that by now." she replied.

"It's true then?" he said sadly.

"What's true? You're not making a lot of sense." she told him

"That you and he are in love."

There was a reverberating bang followed by a string of expletives as she hit her head on the top of the conduit.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"No, how could you think that… Me and Buzz Lightyear? He's a complete wanker! And he's one of Haftel's big game hunters."

"But he said…"

"I suppose I have to take some responsibility for that, but you'll soon find his undying devotion to me evaporates once the environmental system recycles the air a few more times. He is astonishingly open to suggestion." she explained. "Thirty seconds in a turbolift with him and he was like putty in my hand."

"So you never…"

"God no. Ew, he's not my type at all. Far too obvious, and he's painfully dim." she replied and giggled. "You thought you were a bit on the side, didn't you?"

"It…It. The thought had occurred to me." he smiled. "Who's Buzz Lightyear?"

She laughed. "He's a character from some 21st century movies. My nieces and nephew love them." she replied. "To infinity and beyond…" she cried dramatically.

"You're an aunt?" he asked. "The Doctor didn't mention your twin had children."

"He doesn't they're my oldest brother Geoffrey's kids."

"Oldest? How many do you have?" he asked with a frown.

"Well, there's Geoffrey, Haydn, Cadfael, Emlyn and Anuerin, but we call him Nye for short. Then there's my sisters Tegan and Bronwyn. I might have others on my biological mother's side too for all I know, she's a slapper by all accounts."

His eyes widened in shock, "Some of those names are unusual." he eventually commented. "Are they Orion?"

"No, only Emlyn and I are part Orion. Dad's on the third mother of his children. They're all Welsh names."

"Welsh? I thought you were English." he commented.

"Don't let my Dad hear you say that, he'll knock you into next week and bust you to Ensign." she laughed. "Technically I am English born and raised but Dad's very proud of his Welsh heritage."

"My father lives in Swansea." he told her. "The Doctor's right, I do need to get to know the real you." Did he say real? He began to panic. Perhaps she wouldn't notice.

"The 'real' me?" she asked, "Is there a short green hologram running around somewhere that I should be jealous of?" Her tone was gentle and teasing, far from accusatory as he had expected.

"It's sort of a long story, but there's no one you need to be jealous of, believe me." he replied, "So you like old movies?"

"I adore old movies. I wrote a holodeck program when I was on the Faraday and started movie night. It's a cinema, like a movie theatre but the architecture changes to match the era of the film. I'll have to show you it, but it's not a patch on any of your stuff, I'm just a dabbler really. This attenuator is crackered. I'm taking it out."

"Crackered?"

"Rhyming slang, Cream Crackered – Knackered."

"And knackered means?"

"Worn out after hard use. Although knackers can also mean someone's testicles so it implies exhaustion after…"

"I get it." he told her. "You should come with a universal translator."

"I'm part Orion, it'll take more than that." she joked, "Sorry, I have a filthy mind sometimes."

"I could have phrased it better I suppose." he chuckled. "I'm going to have my hands full with you."

"Literally if I have anything to do with it." she replied, "I wonder why they put this here? Its proximity to the implulse deck as reverberated the crap out of it. Can you pull me out please?"

"Is that another euphemism?" he asked.

"No, I'm stuck." she giggled.

He reached in and grabbed her by the ankle, pulled her out of the conduit and onto his lap where he held her, his face buried in the back of her neck. She smelled different, only the very slightest hint of the musky smell that was so obvious when she had kissed him earlier and her hair smelled of coconut shampoo. He sighed and began to nuzzle her ear. Even without the pheromones, being close to her was no less arousing.

"No." she protested and pulled away, she was trembling, kneeling in front of him. "Sorry it's just..." She drew a steadying breath. "Erm… I'm sorry I thought, I didn't think it would affect me like this." Tears formed in her eyes and she swiped at them with her sleeve. "It's not like it's the first time someone's copped a feel without permission, but I thought he was going to, that I would have to let him…" She looked lost and frightened.

"It's happened before?" he asked softly.

"It's an occupational hazard when you're green. Men either avoid you like the plague, flirt or take liberties." she replied, "Even with my pheromones inhibited it's unavoidable." Her lip twitched into a smirk, "The trick is to get the good ones to stop avoiding you."

He rose to his knees and pulled her face into his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise. I didn't mean to rush you." he said sympathetically. "If you need some time or space to…"

"Just, approach me from the front for the time being." She sniffed, smiled and gazed up at him. "The last thing I want is time or space away from you."

He kissed her lips softly and gently as he held her in his arms. She was right, he just couldn't stop himself, but he knew he wasn't taking advantage, she was retuning his kisses eagerly. He felt as though he could kiss her like this for the rest of his life and be utterly content.

"Oh shit!" she exclaimed, pulling away from him and rising to her feet. She grabbed the worn out attenuator.

"What, what did I do?"

"I just realised why they reconfigured all the circuitry, hid this attenuator, why there was so much security and why they were going like a bat out of hell. They were trying to get him to the Annex before he manifests himself. The bloody idiots don't know how to contain him in protected memory." she exclaimed. "They have a Vortigon on board!"

 _Authors note_

 _I do not own Buzz Lightyear or Toy Story._

 _Thanks to everyone for their comments so far, it really is appreciated. This story is already complete at 25 chapters, so other than minor tweaks your comments can't really change much. However they are influencing the sequel which is currently underway. It features much more Dan "The Man" Ashby for starters so keep the comments coming, they really do encourage me to write faster and if I finish before this story is posted I'll post faster. (Bribe bribe.)_

 _ync_


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The Sovereign class ship was travelling at the highest warp it could muster. It was risky, there had been no time for a shakedown cruise. In the command chair Captain Picard's expression was grim. The Bastion had made one other stop during its visit to the Sol system. Utopia Planitia. It had stopped at the shipyard before visiting Earth and Jupiter and the subsequent detonation of an incendiary device in his quarters, the quarters he shared with his fecund wife could not be a coincidence, nor could the Bastions presence in the Atrea system at the time of the attack on the Tainers.

Admiral Janeway was sitting in the first officer's seat. Together they had managed to rally a makeshift crew from volunteers. Officers based in the system, most of which were friends and colleagues of those taken. They had been able to plot the path the Bastion had taken after departing Jupiter Station. It was heading out of the sector at high warp. Admiral Paris remained as their contact at Starfleet Command, and Admiral Prior sat to Picard's left. The writ he had obtained could only be served by a lawyer, if and when they found the ship but it would supersede all Starfleet Orders. They would have to release their people once it was served, unless of course they planned to fight and the Enterprise, even with an unseasoned skeleton crew and unfinished could easily outgun a Defiant Class ship. The problem would be catching the smaller vessel.

His other concern was his wife. She was still aboard the Enterprise, although there was no evidence she'd be any safer elsewhere. He didn't doubt that she was the bombs intended target. Someone was rounding up or eliminating everyone who knew anything about the workings of Soong-type androids and Data in particular. What he couldn't fathom was why.

"Captain, we have received a transmission from the Bortas. Ambassador Worf is aboard and is on an intercept course with the Bastion." Geoffrey Prior announced from the Tactical station.

"Very good." Picard replied. "Any word from your ex mother in law?" he asked Admiral Prior.

"No, and she was never my mother in law. Thank God." he replied. "Edara isn't in the Syndicate but she knows plenty of people who are, I'd be very surprised if she didn't know as much as we do, if not more. She isn't returning my communiques, but then, she's always blamed me for Taryn joining Starfleet."

"I still want to know who's behind all this." Janeway said, "How can there be a Security Order the Security Council know nothing about?"

"Section 31?" Prior suggested.

"That's a myth." Janeway replied.

"Is it?" Picard asked. "Do you have another explanation?"

She paused, "If you're right, it's time to call in any favours we haven't already." she replied, "With your permission I'd like to make a detour to take us nearer to Vulcan and open a channel to Mr Tuvok."

"Mr Paris, make it so." Picard ordered, appreciating her deference. It may be his ship but the crew were mostly hers."

"Aye sir." Tom Paris responded.

"We are receiving a transmission from Memory Alpha. It appears to be a compressed data file." Seven reported. "We have received it intact along with a brief text message addressed to Admiral Prior." she frowned, "They are cutting through the door to arrest me, please send a JAG rep. Love Cadfael." Seven looked over her shoulder at the Admiral with a confused expression on her face.

Iestyn tutted and smirked at his oldest son. "Not the first time I've had to spring one of my kids out of the klink, although it's usually Number Two Son." he commented, "Let's hope what he sent was worth it."

…

With his medical duties discharged for the moment The Doctor had shut down the makeshift holographic sickbay, uploaded his program to Bastion and had joined the effort to catalogue the items held in the larger cargo bays that had been seized in the raid. He was accompanied by Dr Zimmerman, Lucy Sheridan and Hayley who had been located in the computer core and activated.

He was distracted by dark, swirling smoke in the corner of the room. He turned to see it coalesce into a humanoid form. It stood over eight feet tall, with dark copper skin, like a bronze statue. It's lean, muscular body was distinctly male and wore a black armoured shoulder harness with plates held by chains over the centre of his chest and back. He wore matching spiked bracers and knee boots and a studded cod piece. He turned to look at The Doctor, his eyes burning like embers and growing from his forehead were goats horns as black as coal.

" _Doctor, Hayley. I need you both to stay very calm_." it was Taryn's voice in his head, clearly via the ships computer. " _Hayley, I need you to lead Dr Z and Lucy towards the door very slowly keeping them behind you_." she instructed, " _Doctor, I need you to maintain eye contact with him and drop to one knee._ "

"Are you sure about this?" he whispered.

" _He's aware you're a hologram. He's trying to work out whether you're on his side, or the player's side."_ she explained. _"He thinks life is a game and you're part of it."_

"Why me and not Hayley?" he asked.

 _"_ _He's aware of her as well, he perceives you to be the more useful target. In this game it's a good strategy to get a healer in your party early on."_

The Demonic creature tilted his head and a hollow snarl emerged from his lips. With a swirl of more smoke a double handed great-sword appeared in his hand and he began wielding it menacingly and approaching him.

" _You need to swear fealty to him or he will destroy your matrix, now look him in the eye, drop to one knee and repeat after me_ …"

"I am eternally your faithful servant Lord Vortigon, Liege of the Darkling Realm." The Doctor intoned with all the feeling he could muster.

"Good." the being growled and cupped The Doctor's cheek with his burnished hand as though he were a favoured child.

" _Your heroes are about to arrive, when the doors open I need you to get Lucy and Dr Z out Hayley. Okay?_ "

The door opened and the two scientists and holographic assistant backed rapidly through the door as Data and Barclay entered armed with a basket-hilted broadsword and a toolkit respectively.

"Have you fought with a sword before?" Barclay asked.

"No." Data replied, "You?"

"A rapier, on the holodeck."

"Would you care to swap?" Data asked anxiously, wishing he could turn off his emotions.

"No no, you can deal with the massive Demon. I'll uncouple the emitters." Barclay replied nervously watching the ominous figure making nefarious plans with The Doctor.

Data raised both his eyebrows and tilted his head.

Taryn entered behind them, her left hand was covered in a metallic gauntlet and her right upper arm bore the mobile emitter on a band. She was carrying an assortment of replicated weapons.

"Good, he's still busy. He does like his dialogue does Vortigon." she grabbed a small shield, pulled a metal spike from the back and rapidly screwed it into the front at the centre boss. "My baby brother the adventure gamer tells me this weapon configuration is the best defence against a great-sword and it hasn't failed me yet." She placed the shield in Data's right hand. "Hold this dirk with your shield hand like this." she told Data and indicated that the blade was emerging from the bottom of the shield edge. "With the sword hilt protecting your hand you can fend off his blows as you parry. Between the sword and the dirk and targe you can attack and defend with both hands. Useful when you're left handed like us in any swordfight." He nodded in response. "Try and stick to slashing blows to his collar bone, his shoulder armour is weaker than his chest plate and you should be able to strike through to the heart. You need to rip out his heart to win. When you do he will go dormant and we can shunt him into protected memory." She grasped him by the cheeks with one hand and looked him in the eyes. "Don't break anything I can't fix." she warned him.

Data looked up as Vortigon snarled, he had finished The Doctors induction seminar to the legion of evil and had begun to approach them. Data crossed the distance and defended an overhead blow with the shield and aimed a kick to the beast's chest, pushing him away.

"No wonder they banned this game in the Federation, it's gruesome." Reg commented.

"They only banned it because I recommended it. It was very popular until the villain here began taking over ships and space stations and started communicating with his opposite numbers over subspace to form a coalition." she said as she prepared her own shield. "It's about forming alliances as much as it is fighting."

"How many of these things have you come across?" Barclay asked as he headed to the nearest holo-emitter and started work.

"A few. I don't see them as often as I used to but they pop up on non-Federation holographic systems from time to time." she said. "I've never seen one levelled this high before. The flaming eyeballs are a new touch." She armed herself with the spiked shield and put the dirk in her hand. "Haftel's been trying to find a military application for the program but I can't adapt the code and neither can anyone else at the Annex." She picked up her sword. "I always suspected Ootani kept a souvenir, he wrote Vortigon's heuristic algorithm."

"As if I needed another reason to hate him." Barclay said as he worked rapidly to disable the wall mounted device. "Did you try talking to the author of the program?"

"He was Vortigon's first casualty." Taryn explained.

The Doctor had shuffled around the edge of the room and joined them. "Why can't you just disperse him? You have the weapons for it." The Doctor asked.

"Vortigons tend to combust and shower a wide area with partially dispersed photons, and we have you in the room. If you were to be caught in the fallout…" Taryn explained.

"You would start to burn and there wouldn't be a lot we could do beside break out the marshmallows." Barclay told him. "So if Data is Plan A and I'm Plan B, are you just hanging around in case we need plan C?" he asked Taryn.

"No, I'm here to defend Plan B."

"From what?" he asked.

They watched as Vortigon pushed Data against a wall with their swords crossed between them. He pushed him off with the shield against the demon Lord's abdomen, impaling him on the spike. The monstrous figure stepped back and roared with his hands outstretched at the sides and was surrounded by red swirling smoke which coalesced into six shapes. Data seized the opportunity and aimed a blow at the creatures shoulder, but it passed straight through as if the being had become smoke himself. Vortigon turned his gaze to Barclay and snarled. Six red skinned imps around four feet tall and armed with short swords hissed and began to approach them.

"Them." Taryn replied. "He's just worked out what you're trying to do." she warned and took on a defensive posture.

"Doctor? C…could you give me a hand here?" Reg asked nervously.

"Surely the mortality fail-safes…" The Doctor began, taking a tool that was handed to him.

"We aren't on a holodeck." Barclay replied. "This is about as real as it gets."

…

"Project ECHO and ECAO?" Janeway repeated in the conference lounge. "Zimmerman is working on the ECH, is it something to do with that?"

"Not exactly, although this project has absorbed that research." Seven reported. "The ECAO is an android officer that can take command of a ship, take part in away missions and function like any other officer. It is an evolution of Soong-Type androids utilising the crystalline memory module designed by Dr Sheridan. The ECHO uses the same matrix but is holographic in nature, powered by the mobile emitter designed by Lieutenant Commander Barclay."

"He has a prototype?" Picard asked.

"He has a theoretical model that has passed all the simulations, according to the dossier his next step is to build the prototype." she replied. "In addition to being sentient, both units are designed to be operated by the remote neural interface devised by Dr Mitchell, this process will disable their self-determination and any ideas they may have regarding self-preservation."

"That's monstrous!" Beverly exclaimed. "They are living beings."

"That is the point." Seven stated. The acronyms stand for Expendable Commissioned Android or Holographic Officer."

"Expendable." Beverly shook her head.

"Commissioned?" Janeway asked. "They plan to put them through the Academy?"

"No." Seven responded, "They plan to reinstate Commander Data's commission and use his matrix in every unit. They intend to announce them as the New Datas, but they're not. Their programming is to be heavily supplemented by the ECH coding and a new battle strategy algorithm created by Dr Ootani. Without the commission they doubt organic officers will accept orders from ECHO or ECAO. They plan to place an officer of each type on every starship."

"They want to turn him into a war machine." Picard breathed. "An army of war machines."

"A war machine that can assume command, and be controlled via subspace." Seven warned.

"Small wonder they wanted to keep this quiet." Iestyn commented. "I can't believe my daughter knew anything about this. Certainly not for the last year."

"Who's listed as the development team?" Janeway asked.

"Vice Admiral Antony Haftel, Dr Jason Eden and Lieutenant Ruxia Dar." Seven replied.

"Dar was part of Maddox' team." Picard commented. "The B-4 project had a traitor on board from the start."

"It seems your daughter isn't involved, but she certainly found herself in the middle of it." Janeway commented.

"I can see why they would gather everyone with experience in working on Data, but why go to the effort of trying to blow me up?" Beverly asked.

"If I wanted to take control of Starships remotely," Geoffrey Prior began, "I wouldn't want anyone around who knew how to disable the device I was using to do it."

"That's why they took everyone." Tom Paris stated, "They don't need them to make it work. They plan to eliminate them all."

"If that were the case they'd have killed them on the spot surely." O'Brien reasoned.

"Operation Paperclip." Picard intoned. "Section 31 are rounding up scientists and engineers."

"What's Operation Paperclip?" B'Elanna asked.

"In the years following the Second World War they rounded up and evacuated over 1500 German scientists, technicians and engineers along with their families and set them to work in a number of military bases across the United States, partly as a way of claiming what they called 'Intellectual Reparations' in terms of patents and research but also to prevent their expertise going to other countries such as Russia." Janeway explained.

"If you're right," Beverly stated, "this may only be the first wave."

…

Taryn decapitated the fifth Imp, returning him to smoke as the final one struck her in the upper chest with the hilt of its sword and knocked her back into the wall beside Barclay. He raised his sword to deliver his death stroke, but she was quicker and sliced the Imp in the throat with her dirk. It was the fourth wave of imps she had faced and she was starting to get tired and sloppy, the last one had got far too close for comfort.

"So this is y...your d…day job?" Barclay asked with a concerned expression on his face.

"Pretty much." she replied, watching Data battle with Vortigon. They were a little too well matched for her liking. "I often find technical solutions and do a lot of negotiation too but with some life-forms, particularly holographic ones that have game based origins you just have to play them to the conclusion."

"You're still planning to resign, aren't you?" he asked.

"When I said that in the lab while you were working with us you looked like you were going to faint." she replied archly.

"Well, I didn't know where you'd end up. I mean, I hoped Maddox would swing you a transfer to Daystrom." he replied.

"If I don't resign Haftel will never let me leave the Annex. Even then he'll probably make sure I end up in a penal colony. I've broken orders, leaked classified information, misused Diplomatic Privilege, breached security protocols, made unauthorised experimental upgrades to a ships computer core and staged a mutiny in my undies… The list is growing."

"Well, I…I promise you least one regular visitor." he smiled. "They allow conjugal visits right?"

She laughed and rested her head against his arm. "I think you have to be married to qualify." she replied.

"Fine with me." he responded as he pulled out the emitter. She stared at him in shock.

As Barclay removed the cable Vortigon screamed as though he was wounded and manifested further imps. He roared and his ivory horns burst into flames.

"Oh crap. He just levelled up." Taryn swore and tapped her communicator. "Prior to La Forge is the containment holding?"

 _"_ _Nothing photonic or otherwise can get in or out of that cargo hold."_ Geordi reassured her.

Eight imps where approaching this time and she stepped forward to attack them.

"Did you just propose to her?" The Doctor asked Barclay as they moved to the next emitter and started work. "Nice sentiment but I have to question your timing Reg." He frowned, "How many more emitters are there in this cargo bay?"

"Four." Barclay replied coldly.

"Can you go any faster?"

"No." He had that sinking feeling that if they emerged from the Cargo Bay without being sliced to ribbons, he would shortly be on the receiving end of 'we need to talk.'

…

Data found sword fighting a relatively straight forward activity and the set-up of Scottish broadsword, dirk and targe, a Scottish shield, to be effective and efficient `as both attack and defence, although he was somewhat glad she had not asked him to fight in traditional Scottish dress, especially as it was customary to drop your plaid in battle and engage your enemies naked from the waist down. It was the opponent that was causing him concern. Data didn't tire, but neither did Vortigon, in that way they were matched, but they were also well matched in terms of strength, something Data had only ever come across when fighting Lore or the Borg hand to hand, something he was far from used to. That was before the taller being's horns had burst into flames. Data still held the speed advantage, which was in his favour but every time he wounded his enemy it sent imps in the direction of Barclay. From the corner of his eye he could see Taryn was dispatching them efficiently, although not easily and the last volley of red skinned assailants had been eight strong. She appeared to be struggling and he could only conclude that when Vortigon had increased in strength, so had they.

He was now fighting defensively only, playing for time as he had realised some time ago that his chances of defeating the demon that loomed over him, to paraphrase something he had once heard and spent time researching, fell somewhere between no hope and Bob Hope, and Bob was apparently dead. He knew that removing active holo-emitters was far from easy and time consuming. That was why Barclay was performing the task rather than Geordi. Data knew that had there been a choice Taryn would have preferred to keep her new man as far away as possible from the horned creature that was currently knocking an android capable of bending parsteel with a tensile strength of forty kilobars all over a Cargo Bay.

He could keep blocking and parrying, but the longer he kept going the greater the likelihood the holographic construct would increase in level to keep testing him. He'd heard Geordi's voice advising them that the creature was contained and would therefore be unable to relocate to other parts of the ship and knew that Taryn had taken measures to isolate him within the computer core. The ship was safe but the three other beings in the bay with them were not and had no route for escape. Once he was defeated, which was inevitable, he knew it would be down to Taryn to resolve the matter and while he had faith in her experience and skills he could read in her face that she had mixed feelings at how successful her back-up plan would be.

Vortigon roared and began breathing fire from his mouth like a forked tongue. He had just increased in level again.

…

Taryn slashed her way through the last of the imps in time to hear Vortigon roar, shatter Data's shield and sword as he parried the next two blows and watched in horror as the third blow was thrust into the centre of her friend's chest and emerged from his back. Data's expression turned blank as his head tilted back and an electrical charge enveloped him and his attacker.

Vortigon released his grasp on the sword as the static dissipated and let his victim fall onto his side with the blade still impaling him. Beside her The Doctor went to go to their fallen comrade but she restrained him with her sword arm across his chest. Vortigon was heading their way slowly, roaring like a wild animal.

"Time for plan C Reg." she said, dropping her weapons to the floor. He grabbed a probe from his kit and turned to face her. "I need you both to trust me and not react to anything I say to him, or he says to me." she instructed as he made an adjustment to the mobile emitter. "And by both I mean you Barclay." she added.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor asked.

"We're trying to copy the photonic signature of a character in the game, but I don't know if it will work." she told him as Barclay activated the emitter on her arm. "Last time I tried this it was on a holodeck with a transporter armband I adapted, he saw straight through it and flung me at a wall." she looked up at Barclay and winked. "Wish me luck."

She walked towards the beast with confidence. It was time to play the game from a different angle.

…

Barclay was far from happy at her walking, no, sashaying unarmed towards the monster that had just slid a great-sword through an androids chest like he was made of ice-cream. Then he noticed it, she reached her arms behind her and pressed a hidden button on the gauntlet she wore between her thumb and forefinger and the glove shimmered behind her back out of sight of the creature.

"Empress Rosalba." Vortigon snarled. "You honour me with your presence, fair lady."

"Lord Vortigon." she acknowledged his greeting with a gracious nod.

"I have taken the life of yet another rival for your affection." He indicated Data's inert form, "What more must I do to win your heart?" he growled.

Reg didn't like this, not one bit and for a brief moment wondered if seeing her thrown across the room would be easier to bear. He felt The Doctors hand around his upper arm, restraining him.

"Be my bride and we shall rule together for all eternity." he pleaded.

Barclay had to admit it was a better proposal than the one he had made.

"That's a very tempting offer." she purred and took another step towards him, gazing into those burning eyes.

Vortigon smiled and a low growl emanated from his throat. He stepped towards her and gently placed his huge hand at the back of her head and leant in to kiss her. He froze as she drove her gauntleted hand into his chest. Pressed the button again with her other hand and yanked out his still beating heart. Betrayal and horror passed across his face as he melted from existence, followed by the holographic organ in her hand.

"It's true what they say, the Annex get all the cool toys." Barclay mused, he really wanted to get a look at that glove, at the very least he could annoy The Doctor with it. The great-sword also vanished from Data's chest and he began to leak chemical nutrients across the floor. They all rushed and crouched at his side.

"That looks serious." The Doctor commented.

"It could be worse." Taryn replied and inspected her friends chest wound through the hole in his clothing impassively, then tapped her communicator, "Geordi, it's over you can drop the force field. Data's going to need some work though. His primary power unit's been run through and he's leaking hydraulic fluid everywhere."

 _"_ _Okay, let's get him up to the lab and we'll take a closer look."_ He replied.

"You seem awfully flippant considering you just watched a friend be stabbed through the chest." The Doctor commented sharply. "No doubt it would be different if he were organic."

Barclay grimaced, this was not going to be pretty.

"What?" she shouted. "Do you really think I don't care that he's lying in a puddle of his bodily fluids after losing a fight I sent him into? But weeping, wailing and rending my clothing isn't going to fix him now is it? Don't you _dare_ suggest I don't care because he's artificial just because I'm capable of maintaining professional detachment, something you of all people should understand!" She tore the mobile emitter from her arm and threw it to The Doctor. "Thank you for lending it to me." she snapped.

Geordi entered with an anti-grav trolley and they lifted Data onto it for transfer to the lab. "It's not as bad as it looks," Geordi reassured them as he inspected the damage. "In fact he had a very similar incident with his old body, they even buried him and he was fine after."

"I'll be there in a minute to give you a hand." she said as Geordi and The Doctor left the room but she stopped Reg with a hand on his arm just when he thought he'd got away with it. He didn't want to have this conversation at all, let alone after she'd lost her temper.

"Look, I don't think The Doctor meant to offend you…" he began hoping to waylay her train of thought.

"Don't worry, we clash like that from time to time. Sometimes we touch each other's raw nerves, but we always kiss and make up… Platonically of course." she added rapidly.

"I'm glad to hear that." he smiled nervously, and became acutely aware she was looking at him with an expectant expression on her face. "I know. It was stupid, forget I said it." he blurted.

"It wasn't stupid it was… untimely, impulsive and a whole lot of other things but not stupid. You realise I can't say yes though?"

He nodded, "Like I said, forget it."

"I'm not sure I want to forget it. It's my first ever proposal and by far the best one I've had today." She looked up at him with her green eyes. "Perhaps you should ask me again once we've spent a lot more time together. If you still want to that is."

Barclay smiled as he watched her walk away, he may not have got a 'yes', but it wasn't exactly a 'no' and she certainly hadn't dumped him. Not yet anyway.

 _Author's Note_

 _Thank you for reading. Any and all comments are welcome._


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's note._

 _Here's where the story earns it's M rating, adult themes but nothing explicit._

 _Barclay's got the starlight, he's got the girl... What could possibly go wrong?_

 **Chapter 12**

He should be happy, he should be ecstatic but he wasn't. In fact he felt awful.

After restoring Data to full working order with Geordi and Maddox, Taryn had come to find Barclay in Engineering where he was attempting to get subspace radio back online. They had given up on repairing the warp drive, Commander Young had destroyed the dilithium crystals with his phaser when he'd realised the ship wasn't about to blow up. No crystals, no matter anti-matter reaction, it was as simple as that. They still had the problem of exactly who they should contact when they managed to restore long range communications. They didn't really know who they could trust within Starfleet anymore but that debate was purely academic if Barclay couldn't build a new attenuator. He had Dan Ashby to assist him, and he had to reluctantly admit the young scientist had a good grasp of engineering principles and was a hard worker, although his outgoing manner grated on Reg. He reminded him of Wesley Crusher, back in the days when the wunderkind wouldn't give him the chance to finish a sentence. He'd always suspected Geordi had intervened on that front as the boy genius' attitude changed overnight. He was still an irritating little shit of course, but Barclay had found himself fantasising about smashing the kid's head in with a hyperspanner much less often. He had drawn the line at recreating that scenario on the holodeck, even he realised some fantasies were best left to the imagination and it had occurred to him that once he started he might not be able to stop. Almost every story about a serial or spree killer he'd ever heard of had a queue of people lining up to say how quiet and unassuming the maniac had seemed before they found out he was wearing someone's skin as a dress on the weekends. Not that he believed he was capable of that level of cruelty, he didn't cope well with the sight of blood for one thing.

It had occurred to him that had he met Taryn as a sickeningly bright teen he would have found her just as annoying as he did Wesley, but Maddox had reassured him on that front. She'd always shied away from the spotlight as a student at Daystrom, she believed in the work and always supported her fellow students rather than stepping on their necks to get ahead. She confined her competitive streak to gymnastics and was a gold medal winner on the Starfleet Academy team, something that had surprised him and he secretly found rather hot.

He was returning the system to original specifications when she arrived and reinstalling the new attenuator when she joined him in the Jeffries tube. They had talked while they worked, she seemed as interested in learning more about him as much as he did her. They kept talking after the system was up and running and they had advised the others. They kept talking as they ate together in the mess hall and they'd tasted each other's food, his was like styrofoam bourguignon and hers like polymer risotto, not that either of them cared. No one had ever offered him food off their own fork before although he'd seen others share that intimacy. He now knew why, he was tempted to find The Doctor to check if he had been left with an arrhythmia after all.

He doubted he had ever talked as much to a woman in his life, except maybe Deanna and that had been her job and Leosa who had an ulterior motive. Eventually he'd found the Ships Counsellor one of the few women he could actually talk to despite the crush he'd harboured when he was first assigned to the Enterprise. She had become his friend, as had Doctor Crusher even though they both knew what he had got up to on the holodeck with their alter-egos, he valued that and valued them all the more for it. Taryn was a force of nature and certainly one to be reckoned with but she was unlike anyone he had ever met and so very different to what he'd imagined her to be, different and better. She didn't seem to want to change him as Hope had tried to do, he didn't believe she was trying to use him as Leosa had and Maril, well she was lovely but she hated cats so that put the tin lid on that relationship. He wasn't about to evict Neelix for one of Riker's cast offs, that was for sure. On the subject of Neelix, he hoped the elderly lady next door had realised he was gone and been feeding his furry friend in his absence. Taryn loved animals and seemed to want him exactly the way he was, flawed, neurotic, anxious and nervous and the only thing she seemed to want to improve about him was his sense of self-worth.

After dinner they'd taken a stroll around the ship although this was ostensibly to find some quarters to sleep in. All the best quarters had gone, not that there was anything on board that could be regarded as comfortable, let alone luxurious. They eventually found somewhere not too near the plasma vents, reasonably close to the heads and showers and as far as possible from Ootani. With plenty of room to spare they took a room each.

He kissed her goodnight, it was a kiss he never wanted to end, but reluctantly he let her enter her room alone.

It was then he found he couldn't sleep, not just from the excitement, he never could sleep in wall mounted bunks. They were uncomfortable, too short and made him claustrophobic, even with the blind open. After two hours of tossing and turning he gave up and hit the shower then headed to the mess hall for a milky drink, only to find she'd had the same idea.

This time when they walked back to their quarters together, carrying drinks that tasted like plasma coolant with nutmeg in he didn't leave her at the door. He accepted her invitation to come in.

She had exhibited far more sense than him and had built a nest, at least, that was how it looked to him. She had pulled the mattress pads onto the floor, and then gone to unoccupied quarters and appropriated four more, along with bed linen and pillows and built herself a bed. Now why hadn't he thought of that? He found it surprisingly comfortable as they sat, drank their disgusting bedtime drinks and debated what exactly was wrong with the replicators.

Then it happened, he didn't know who started it, he wasn't even aware at what point their clothing disappeared. All he knew was the entire universe shrank to that makeshift bed, whispered epithets, moans, whimpers and several minutes of frantic febrile thrusting. It was the most wonderful experience of his life.

She was currently laying snuggled into his shoulder, smiling sweetly. She looked excruciatingly beautiful, covered in their sweat and breathless. He was so overwhelmed with joy he thought he might weep. That was when another emotion swept over him.

Guilt.

It wasn't that he didn't love her, he did with every particle of his being. He knew they were heading to this inevitable conclusion, they'd been struggling to keep their hands off each other since The Doctor had walked in on them kissing. It was the moment they had spent by the conduit, when she had looked so helpless and lost as she spoke about what Eden had done that haunted him. He should have waited, she was vulnerable. He should have made sure she got some counselling before he sank up to his balls in her like a selfish bastard.

Anxiety flooded his mind and body. He was no better than Eden, he'd taken advantage of her and what if she hated him for it?

He removed the hand from his eyes and realised she was leaning on her elbow staring at him, a puzzled expression on her face.

Reg may have the soul of a poet and the heart of a musketeer but he was the first to admit he wasn't the most verbally articulate of men. He was also aware that immediately after he discharged his flintlock he could barely construct a coherent sentence.

"Hi." he said weakly, it was the only response he could muster.

"Are you okay? I mean you seem… You're disappointed aren't you?"

"I'm… well yes, I am disappointed." The words surprised him as they escaped his mouth.

She stiffened and sat up. "Well, next time you seduce a green woman you should make sure she has a higher percentage of Orion DNA." she stated angrily. "You might have a better time."

"That's a good suggestion." he replied thoughtfully. "Thank you."

She grabbed her clothes and began to dress, shaking with anger.

"You know, I've been pumped and dumped before but I expected better from you. You actually had me fooled, I really thought I meant something to you but I don't do I? I'm just a…a… check box on your bucket list. Screw a green woman, it comes after get a hand job from a Deltan and before Jamaharon on Risa!" she snapped, her volume increasing with every word while he simply sat there listening intently. "I can't believe I let myself fall in love with you while you were just after a novelty screw!" She began pacing back and forth, "Well, you played a very long and very clever game Mr Barclay, I'm sorry I turned out to be a sexually inadequate waste of your time. Don't just sit there you bastard! Say something! You went to a hell of a lot of effort to get me into bed and now you have the bragging rights. Get up, go and tell Ootani just how right he is about Orion women, that they're only good for one thing. Go on, GET OUT!" she pointed to the door.

…

There had only been one realistic option of who to call, and Captain Maddox, although the ranking officer was more than happy to defer to Commander La Forge.

"We're stranded out here on impulse only and while we seem to be in no immediate danger, they are going to start missing us before very long and come looking." Geordi explained.

"I agree Mr La Forge." Picard replied, "We are already on course to Galor IV and will be at your location in approximately twelve hours. Have there been any casualties we need to prepare for?" the Captain asked.

"Nothing we haven't been able to handle ourselves." Geordi replied. "Although I'm sure we'd have lost Prior and Barclay if we hadn't had the Doc and Data."

Picard shifted in his seat. "You mean he's…" Geordi smiled then turned and beckoned someone off screen with a tilt of his head.

"Captain." Data said softly as he stepped into view.

A genuine, rare smile broke across the Captains face. "It's good to see you Mr Data."

"It is good to see you too sir." Data replied with a slight smile. He didn't really know what else to say.

"Rest assured we will find a way to stop this project." Picard reassured him.

"That is not my only concern," Data explained, "Lieutenant Commander Prior has made us aware that for some time the Daystrom Annex has been used as an internment camp for artificial lifeforms numbering into the hundreds if not thousands. They have been used in experimental and exploratory procedures, often without consent and certainly without regard to their wellbeing."

"The other shoe drops." Picard said to Admiral Prior sitting to his left.

"I promise you there will be a full and frank investigation into what has been going on at Galor IV." Iestyn assured him. "I'll take it to the Federation President if I have to."

"Data, we have some regretful news. When the assault squad abducted Dr Tainer her husband was badly wounded. He succumbed to his injuries. I'm sorry." Picard told him.

Data's smooth, youthful face appeared sorrowful, stricken with grief and remorse.

"My mother remains… unconscious, her injuries are such that she may not be able to… adjust to her present condition." Data said, hoping Picard understood.

Picard nodded, "We were unaware that her condition was so serious, it is certainly… not public knowledge." the Captain replied, picking up on Data's subtle clue and following suit. "Our thoughts are with you both."

"Thank you sir." Data replied.

"We will speak further in a few hours gentlemen." Picard smiled. "Picard out."

"At least we know it's not all over subspace that she's an android." Geordi told Data as they headed to engineering. "So what are you going to do?"

"I do not know." Data replied, "In some ways the death of Pran Tainer will make her life less complicated should I reactivate her, but it is also more news she will have to come to terms with. He was a good man, he was always supportive of our maintaining a relationship. I am sorry to hear that he has died and I cannot help but feel some responsibility."

"Data you aren't responsible for all this." Geordi assured him.

"Had the Annex not wanted my matrix for this project none of this would have happened." Data reasoned.

"Yeah, but that's down to Haftel, not…"

They stood in silence as a door ahead of them opened and Barclay was unceremoniously shoved into the corridor wrapped in a sheet. The door opened again.

"Steal your own fucking sheet!" Taryn bellowed and snatched it from him.

"Geordi, Data." Barclay acknowledged with his hands covering his dignity. The door opened again and his screwed up uniform hit him in the face and he had to duck to avoid his boots carrying his head off. "I'll just… excuse me." he grabbed his boots and uniform and disappeared into some quarters nearby.

"Uh oh. Looks like there's trouble in paradise." Geordi intoned.

"Indeed." Data commented. "Perhaps we should intercede."

"I don't know Data. They probably wouldn't want us to interfere. This kind of thing has a nasty habit of blowing up in your face." Geordi advised, although he knew it was hopeless. Data would jump in into the middle of this argument up to his axillary joints, he always did. He was romantic that way and far too well meaning for his own good.

"Mr Barclay did ask us to remind him not to piss her off. I do believe that constitutes tacit approval." Data reasoned, "And they are our friends, we should at least offer support."

"Well alright, if you check that Juliet is okay, I'll give Romeo a few minutes to put away his frank and beans and have a word with him." Geordi agreed reluctantly, shaking his head. "Perhaps you should get after her?" Geordi prompted as Taryn emerged from her room and stalked off down the corridor.

"Taryn, where are you going?" Data asked as he caught up with her.

"To the mess, to see how bad the synthehol tastes." she snapped in reply.

Geordi was dreading this, putting Reg's delicate ego back together was becoming a theme of this trip and a job he could do without. To his surprise Barclay emerged seeming quite cheerful and thankfully fully clothed then strode past him and into some vacant quarters.

"Reg, are you okay?" he asked following him

"I'm fine, how are you?" he replied distractedly and began frantically searching the bunks and rummaging through drawers.

"What are you looking for?" Geordi asked.

"A sheet. A bed sheet." Barclay replied, "Have you ever met a Deltan?"

"Yeah once." Geordi replied. "Why?

"Do you think the vow of celibacy Deltan's make when they join Starfleet includes… Groping."

"Groping? How do you mean?"

"You know," Barclay made a gesture with his hand near his crotch.

"What? Yes, I'm pretty sure that's included." Geordi retorted with disgust. "Reg, what just happened between you and Taryn?"

"Whatever it was it was disappointing." he replied bluntly and walked out of the room. Geordi followed him into the next room where he had already begun searching.

"For you or her?" Geordi asked, then immediately regretted it.

"For me, at least, that's what she told me." he replied blankly.

"What she told you?" Geordi asked with a puzzled frown. "Yeah but what did you think?"

"I don't think she'd have lied. She was a sexually inadequate waste of my time, but it was only a novelty screw after all." He continued rummaging. "Have you ever had Jamaharon?"

"Jamaharon? You mean that sex rite the Risan's do?"

"Do you know what it entails?" Reg asked, finishing the search and moving on to the next room.

"I… well not exactly." Geordi replied, following him as he continued his quest.

"I was thinking I might go to Risa on my next vacation and find out."

"You want to go to Risa and have Jamaharon? Reg, you got sunburn in the arboretum on the Enterprise."

"It just seems like the sort of thing a guy should have on his bucket list." Reg reasoned. "Aha, that's exactly what I need." he said, pulling a Tholian silk sheet from a drawer. "It's better than hers too, hers was Egyptian cotton." he remarked proudly. "You know, I need to talk to Ootani." He handed Geordi the sheet and strode out of the room. "I have to brag about nailing Taryn and tell him he's right about Orion girls."

"La Forge to The Doctor, can you come and find me, there's something seriously wrong with Barclay."

…

Had Data been aware of Taryn's issues with synthehol he would have endeavoured to prevent the chain of events that unfolded in the mess room, but it was now a little late for that. It had begun innocently enough. During the first drink she had regaled Data and Dr Zimmerman with a diatribe on exactly why she doubted the legitimacy of Barclay's birth, although none of her reasons seemed applicable in the technical sense. The second drink made her giggly and innocently flirtatious, the third got her up and dancing to music she asked Bastion to play. By the fourth she was gyrating with a chair on one of the tables singing 'Mein Herr' from Cabaret at the top of her lungs but it was the rousing rendition of a song Data had not previously heard that appeared to be entitled 'Voodoo Child' that woke everyone in nearby quarters and there was now an audience in the room to hear her performance of 'All That Jazz' followed by a medley of show tunes and popular music from the last four hundred years. At the fifth drink her jacket was hanging from a light fitting, she was strutting from table top to table top belting out a song about a chain reaction of some kind and swinging her uniform top around above her head in her bra. He had to admit she had a good voice and demonstrated great showmanship, but he sincerely hoped she wasn't planning on removing anymore clothing. He needn't have worried, she attempted to dismount the table with a move he recognised as a gainer. He spotted where she went wrong immediately, she didn't tuck tightly enough in the backflip to rotate sufficiently to land the jump, other than on the back of her neck.

But she was a trooper and continued her performance, although her balance was going and she was currently swaying from side to side, clutching the remains of drink number six and singing an ancient lament. It was at this point Data belatedly realised she was both strongly affected by and unable to dismiss the effects of synthehol, the reason why they serve it on starships, and was in fact, well and truly phasered.

"…you'd leave me for somebody new. Worry, why do I let myself worry, wondrin' what in the world will I do. I'm crazy for thinkin'…" she resonated.

"This is the stuff of fricking legend." Dan whooped. "God I wish I had my holo-camera."

"It's like watching a shuttle wreck." Mitchell added, "You want to, but you can't look away."

"That's the fun over now she's gone into Patsy Kline." Zimmerman stated moodily, "The maudlin stage."

"Data, perhaps The Doctor has something to sober her up, or prevent a hang-over or something." Maddox suggested with a concerned expression on his face. "He should probably look at her head at least after that fall."

"Can I get another drink?" Taryn slurred as Data approached her.

"I believe you have had more than enough." he told her, taking the glass from her hand.

"I haven't, it still hurts here." She pressed her fingers to her heart and staggered slightly, Data grabbed her arm to steady her. "I really loved him you know."

"I am not certain using past tense is necessarily appropriate." Data advised her. "Perhaps if you speak with Mr Barclay when you are feeling more yourself…"

"I've never been more myself in my life!" she declared, listing slightly, "and I'm never speaking to him again, not ever. He only wanted to get into my knickers anyway. He doesn't want me now."

"I do not believe that to be true. I believe his feelings for you to be quite genuine." She swayed again and nearly fell so he threw her over his shoulder.

"Data, do you think Noonien Soong really had an arse as nice as yours," she giggled, "or did he use artistic license?"

Data raised his eyebrows, there was going to be no reasoning with her until she sobered up.

"Stop that." He reminded her to keep her hands to herself as he carried her along the corridor. He was going to have a hard enough time explaining how she had become so drunk while in his care to Barclay let alone what would happen if he found out she'd squeezed his bottom near the plasma vents. With any luck she'd be too drunk to remember.

…

"Where's all this stuff coming from?" Geordi asked as he watched Reg struggle against the restraint field.

"He's displaying compulsive behaviour that has been suggested to him." The Doctor explained. He knew exactly where it was all coming from. Each comment was a direct reflection of fears Taryn had shared with him in confidence. He doubted she'd ever told anyone else, aside from a counsellor perhaps, of her fears that she was unable to live up to her complexion in bed, not even those she'd shared it with. Nor did she openly discuss the men who had seduced her as part of some sort of competition or to make a green notch on their bedpost, yet here was her devoted man admitting to all these behaviours, things The Doctor knew he was absolutely innocent and pathologically incapable of. He knew what must have happened, they had consummated their relationship and something had prompted her to ask him questions about his motives, probably very leading questions and he had simply agreed to everything and was currently believing it himself.

He also knew why. Orion pheromones wield a chemical influence that builds up over time. He knew there were three states of being under which she was unable to maintain her physiological control, when she was asleep, unconscious or sexually excited. At least one of those applied here, he had hoped her physiological control would go some way to mitigating the long term effects on him. However a few days before she had walked into a room with Barclay in it pumping out three to four times the normal level of musk for an Orion, ground her pelvis into his groin and played tonsil hockey with him. The Doctor assumed because even after such an overt display and strong exposure he still doubted she was attracted to him that he had some natural resistance, possibly due to his anomalous genes. It seemed that had only added to the strength of her influence on him. He'd also assumed that once they had made the beast with two backs her Vulcan side would create a mating bond making him immune to her pheromones.

This phenomenon had been first noted by a doctor in the 22nd century named Phlox. He had reported that a Human male who had mated with a Vulcan female had apparent immunity to Orion pheromones in the same way Vulcan's do. Yet considering Barclay had become a total asshat following his exposure to pheromones that had leaked out of her pores during the throes of passion she was apparently not Vulcan enough or her lack of telepathic ability prevented the bond from forming. Or perhaps he was exposed before the bond took hold? It was theoretically possible that he triggered a hormone response in her so intense it would affect a Vulcan but it was extremely unlikely, not that he intended to diminish Reg's capacity as a lover, it was entirely unheard of, Vulcans were immune. But her physiology was so unusual he just didn't know. It was all uncharted territory but with Taryn, everything was.

She had Vulcan blood chemistry, tricuspid teeth and pulmonary system; Orion skin pigmentation and endocrine system; A human heart in the usual place, an appendix and for reasons no one fully understood supernumerary human adrenal glands that were dormant under normal circumstances and her brain and reproductive system were so hybridised she had to be treated as a species apart medically. She was every doctor's nightmare, every untried drug administered to her had to go through a full simulation series to be certain it wouldn't kill her. It was lucky she'd had an adventurous youth and Starfleet Service and her list of safe drugs was quite lengthy at this point, not to mention the fact that as a hologram The Doctor could remember them all. By contrast her twin was like a Vulcan Human hybrid, his Orion DNA was dormant, recessive.

This didn't bode well for the relationship he had encouraged between his two friends but there had to be a solution, if not this love affair was likely to implode if it wasn't irreparably damaged already. Regardless of the depth of emotion between them it would never work out with Barclay transformed into an aggressive, delusional slave with his metabolism racing off the chart.

"You mean, all this weird stuff about sheets and Deltans and holidays to Risa and talking to Ootani came from Taryn?" Geordi asked incredulously. "Is that normal if you have sex with an Orion?"

"Yes." The Doctor replied plainly. "Although usually Orion females don't talk their lovers out of the relationship." He scanned Barclay. "But there have been many case studies in Orion cross-mating, Dr Mizan has done some work on the topic. But I've never heard of and Orion and a Human being in a relationship rather than just having casual sex, but then Orions aren't even genetically compatible with humans at all. If Taryn's grandmother hadn't been curious about Pon farr with a being immune to her chemical charms and put Vulcan in the mix the Prior twins would be a biological impossibility." The Doctor explained. "I hoped her other genetic factors would prevent this from happening, but I may have been wrong."

"I am here you know." Barclay reminded them angrily. "Look I played a clever game and got what I wanted and it's over. What's the problem? It's not like she actually meant anything to me. Green women are only good for one thing, everyone knows that. There's nothing wrong with me so why are you keeping me under restraint?" He wrestled against the field aggressively.

"I beg to differ. You've gone from lovesick puppy to proposing to treating her like the ship bicycle in a matter of hours, your adrenalin and noradrenalin levels are so high I'm surprised your heart isn't bursting out of your chest. Ironically, you need a shot of Hedroxin to slow your heart rate." The Doctor said acidly and looked at his tricorder, "Well, I know why you aren't reverting to type. You're still being dosed with her pheromones trans-dermally. Her sweat is all over you." He put down the tricorder. "It seems the pair of you had quite a time." The Doctor activated the sonic shower unit over the bed and stepped aside to prepare the hypospray.

An uncharacteristic cocky smile spread over Barclay's face, and he looked up as Data entered with Taryn draped over his shoulder.

"Don't bring her in here." The Doctor warned, giving him the shot. "He's taking everything she says literally."

"Really?" Taryn asked from somewhere near Data's backside. "Barclay, go fu…your…elf!"

The expletive was muffled by Geordi's hand as he and Data left the room.

"What did she want me to do?" Barclay asked The Doctor earnestly.

"Co-operate with all the tests I need to run." The Doctor told him, seizing the opportunity.

"Oh, okay." Reg agreed.

The Doctor excused himself and joined them in the corridor. "Very funny young lady, and what if he'd been unable to stop?" The Doctor chided as he scanned her still draped over Data's shoulder, "You could have had the man trying to ejaculate his kidneys."

"It's that serious?" Geordi asked.

"She's already got him convinced he isn't in love with her. Right now if she asked him to walk into an airlock without an environmental suit and void himself into space he'd probably do it." He pressed a few buttons on his tricorder. "What genius let her drink synthehol?"

"That would be me." Data admitted guiltily, "She also had a fall."

"I can see that." The Doctor said massaging her neck and shoulders, "Perhaps we should tattoo 'never mix parkour with synthehol' on your behind, maybe you'll finally grasp the concept." The Doctor told the giggling hybrid sternly.

"She does this often?" Geordi asked.

"Not really," The Doctor admitted, "only when she's heartbroken, and she rarely lets anyone get close enough for that." He examined the readout. "She's fine, she just needs a safe place to sleep it off. Keep her in the recovery position and stay with her if you can. She may get some muscle spasms in her neck and upper back over the next couple of days, if so ask her to call me. But until further notice, these two stay apart."

"Thank you Doctor." Data replied and strode off down the corridor towards her quarters with her hair swishing behind him. "No means no." he protested as they turned the corner.

"Mr La Forge," The Doctor said, "Go and get some sleep while you can. I'll need to run some tests on Mr Love 'em 'n Leave 'em and ask some rather personal questions. It might be easier…"

"I get it Doc," Geordi smiled. "Maybe I'll stop by tomorrow."

The Doctor returned to his patient to find him snoring with his mouth agape. The awkward questions would have to wait.

 _Author's note._

 _Songs mentioned in this chapter:_

 _Mein Herr from Cabaret written by John Kander & Fred Ebb_

 _Voodoo Child by Rogue Traders written by Elvis Costello, James Ash_ _& Steve Davis_

 _All that jazz from Chicago written by John Kander & Fred Ebb_

 _Chain Reaction written by The Bee Gees_

 _Crazy written by Willie Nelson_


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"I just don't know." Barclay said, with his head in his hands. "It was wonderful, better than wonderful it was…beautiful. Then I felt really sad and depressed and it occurred to me that I should have made sure she was alright about what happened with Eden and I felt really guilty and worried that I'd taken advantage. Then she started saying things, and I just agreed, I… God what must she think?"

"She's probably thinking her head hurts, she's dehydrated and not much else right now. She hit the synthehol pretty hard after she shoved you naked into the corridor." The Doctor told him.

"At least it was only synthehol although I can imagine how foul whatever came out of those replicators must have been."

"She has a hybrid metabolism. To her synthehol may as well be 180 proof." The Doctor explained. "She was three sheets to the wind when I checked her over last night."

"But she's okay?" Barclay asked earnestly.

"She's fine, Data stayed up with her. I spoke with him just before you woke and she was already up, admittedly with a hangover from hell." The Doctor reassured him, "Reg, have you felt anxious or depressed after sex before?"

"No." He blushed at the question, "Grateful, but never depressed."

"And you have, with a real woman, other than…"

"Yes, admittedly it's not an everyday occurrence or as often as I'd like, but I have been with real women." Barclay replied indignantly. "Plural not singular, before last night and why does everyone assume my holo-addiction is all about sex?"

"I'm trying to diagnose you, not be judgemental. I never expected it, but her pheromones are affecting you more strongly than I anticipated and it may be that this relationship can't work biologically." There it was again, that sucking chest wound. "But, there are avenues to explore, tests we can do but first I have some more questions,"

"Um… Okay, what do you need to know?" Barclay asked sadly.

"Did you feel compelled to act on what she said when she kissed you and passed you my mobile emitter?" he asked.

"She didn't really say much. She said she needed to see me, I suppose."

"Did you believe her?"

He blushed again, "Not really, I couldn't believe my luck."

"Trust you to have self-doubt enough to cancel out a green woman on overdrive." The Doctor shook his head

The door hissed open and a green face peeped around the frame. "I'm not coming in, I know I'm not allowed. It's just Geordi explained that it's all my fault and I was worried and I wanted to apologise."

"Have you showered?" The Doctor asked, "Got a choke-hold on your Hedroxin levels?" She nodded to both questions. "You can come in for a little while," he said, "but don't get all excited."

"I am so sorry, I…from what Geordi said I projected all my insecurities on to you and…" she approached the bed nervously

"Come here." he said and pulled her into his arms. "How's your head?" he asked with a smile.

"Thumping," she replied, "and my eyeballs feel all scratchy."

"I didn't mean anything I said after we… Well, apart from 'Hi'." he whispered.

"I know, I remember what I said. I just saw the look on your face and I fed you every line. As if you don't have enough neuroses I gave you all of mine too." her eyes widened in realisation, "Could he have PCT?" she asked The Doctor.

"Possibly." The Doctor replied.

"W…What's PCT?" Barclay asked worriedly.

"Post-Coital Tristesse." The Doctor replied.

"I'm so stupid, I should have realised." she held her forehead.

"What, what?" Reg asked, "Is this something serious?"

"It means you get depression immediately after sex." The Doctor explained. "It's quite common. But I think there are other factors at play." He looked pointedly at Reg and tilted his head in Taryn's direction. Reg looked at him with a puzzled expression.

"Oh." Reg said realising what the Doctor was driving at, "I felt guilty, I, well I thought I probably should have waited and made sure you got counselling about what happened with Eden. I was worried you'd resent me because I took advantage."

"You didn't take advantage, if I'd felt uncomfortable about anything I would have said." She hugged him, "I was worried, I mean, I have a lot to live up to thanks to the mythos of green women and I know I probably fall short."

He held her closer. How could someone as lovely as her have any insecurities let alone doubt her ability to please him. He found her utterly irresistible and being with her the wildest thrill of his life. She started to cry into his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry. I did some really stupid things while I was drunk." she bleated.

"What did you do?" He pulled back with a hurt expression on his face, fearing the worst.

"I took my top off and danced on some tables in the mess room, I kept my bra on though." she added quickly, "I think I might have felt up Data's bum and I'm fairly certain I fell on my head showing off my badass gymnastics moves." she sniffed.

"Is that all? I thought…"

"What?" she asked. A look of horror formed on her face, "Oh my God. You think I'd… I may have been bladdered but there isn't enough booze in the universe for that. Especially considering who's on board."

"That's flattering." The Doctor commented from a nearby console.

"Even Data?" Reg asked nervously.

"Especially Data. It would be like doing one of my brothers, despite his pert arse. Besides, he's far too smooth and shiny for my taste. I like a man to have some fur in all the right places. "

He sighed with relief. Although he had realised Data was no threat some time ago it was wonderful to hear her confirm it. Not to mention Geordi had been right about the chest hair. He kissed her forehead and then looked at her askance.

"I sort of did something stupid too, before they put me in restraint I got to a terminal." he told her guiltily. "I may have booked a vacation on Risa where I have a new penpal named Inoti who's sent me six messages about Jamaharon in the last few hours. I seem to be subscribed to a journal for linen fetishists. I have a list of things I want to do before I die and I appear to have placed an ad on a subspace adult contact service for a Deltan woman to jerk me off."

She laughed so hard Reg thought she was going to urinate herself.

"Are you going to tell him Inoti is a boy's name or shall I?" The Doctor smirked and said loud enough for Barclay to hear.

"I am so sorry." she told him, struggling not to laugh then froze. "This is a permanent problem isn't it?" she asked The Doctor. "We can't be together."

"No." Barclay grabbed her wrist.

"What if I made you do something really stupid, something dangerous."

"You won't. I trust you. We know about it now and…and…" he argued desperately.

"You don't understand." she cried, tears streaming down her face. "I've seen what my grandmother turns men into and… That's why I chose a human life and hold back my pheromones all the time. You won't be you anymore. You'll be a slave, you won't think for yourself. You'll turn into an aggressive, jealous arsehole who'll try to rip the head off any man who so much as walks past me. Ultimately you'll end up totally delusional."

"There may be a way." The Doctor advised them. "Mind meld with him. Create a mating bond."

"You can do that?" Reg asked her and turned to The Doctor. "And that will work?"

"I can't mind meld." Taryn said. "I can be melded with, but I can't initiate it. I'm not disciplined enough, it would be dangerous. Besides I don't even know if you can create a mating bond via mind meld. Isn't 'mating' the operative word?"

"So we keep trying." Reg said, "It didn't happen straight away, well you're genetically unique and I'm the Barclay in the Protomorphosis Syndrome..."

"You have a disease named after you." Taryn said impassively, "Why aren't I surprised?" she smirked.

"It's… not as much fun as you'd think." Barclay told her with a nervous smile. "But the point is, we aren't… normal so… we'll make up our own rules."

"That's sweet, but not terribly realistic." she said. "I could have my hedroxal gland removed, they looked into it when I was a kid…"

"They looked into it and ruled it out," The Doctor stated, "primarily because it's a ludicrous idea. You'll need therapy to replace the other hormones produced by the gland for the rest of your life to keep you alive." he explained. "It's just too risky. Let me run some tests, there may be other options. You can still spend time together in the meantime, but you'll need to limit his exposure to your pheromones."

"That's not so bad." Reg said. "See, we'll work something out." he told her.

"You do realise limiting your exposure means no sex and we can't be together while I'm asleep."

"If that's what it takes to be with you, then fine." he blurted. "I'm not giving you up. I can't. And I don't know how Vulcan mating bonds work, but I'll find out."

"I don't know a lot about it, maybe it is something that can form over time, but we can't limit your exposure and keep trying to connect that way."

"That's something you'll have to decide between the two of you. I can only make recommendations." The Doctor told them.

"I know it's a bit late to ask," Taryn said with a worried frown, "But I'm on the binary contraceptive. Haftel's orders. But if you aren't…"

"I already saw to it." The Doctor explained. "Don't worry."

"He ordered you onto contraception?" Barclay asked angrily.

"He doesn't want his asset going on maternity leave. With the job I do I'd need the full term off active duty." she explained. "Of course he assumes thanks to my colouring that I'm at it like a randy Targ. He has the whole base on binary shots and they all blame me."

"That's obscene." Barclay protested, "He can't do that surely?"

"It's not standard procedure but there are provisions for it in the regulations for certain missions." The Doctor explained.

"Believe me, this violation of civil rights is the tip of the iceberg." Taryn told him. "The man is a tyrannical despot. He's in ruthless pursuit of the ultimate weapon. He doesn't care about anyone or anything, it's all just means to an end. I used the word 'asset' a minute ago. That's exactly how he refers to his staff, and all the sentient beings he interns and subjects to abuse and degradation in the name of scientific discovery. We're all just property to him. Tools."

"Well, you're mine now and I always look after my tools." Barclay told her.

"So I noticed." Taryn said while gazing into his eyes.

"Can we go now?" Barclay asked The Doctor, his eyes not leaving hers.

"Alright, but try and keep your clothes on. If I see you back here I really will put you both in stasis."

"Do you have a big enough pod for two?" Taryn asked as she was pulled by the hand from the room.

"I give up." The Doctor stated.

…

"This is horrible." Reg protested as he swallowed a forkful of scrambled eggs. "It tastes like it was scrambled over a candle in a sweaty jock-strap under a full moon."

Taryn helped herself to a forkful from his plate. "Quarter moon, during the Vernal Equinox." she corrected.

He smiled. He let very few people see his sense of humour and even fewer seemed to appreciate his wit. She laughed at his jokes, she massaged his ego and he felt like a better man in her company. The Doctor was half right, she was perfect for him but he was certain she was losing out on the deal.

So much for them abstaining, he'd kept his phaser holstered for an entire fifteen minutes before they'd gone to bed. This time they'd managed not to argue after thumping thighs then headed straight for the showers after. They'd shared the shower, just to save water of course. Another first he'd experienced with her although he subsequently doubted her assertion that the sonic setting wasn't working but he wasn't about to complain, water was far more erotic, so much so he managed an encore. He'd always been more of a musket than a repeating rifle sexually speaking, but then he'd never been exposed to the combination of Orion pheromones and a hot, wet, soapy Taryn. He was still affected by her pheromones but she'd been careful with her suggestions and the shower had helped to clear his head. It wasn't ideal especially as Defiant Class ships don't have en suite bathrooms, but they both seemed buoyed by the fact it seemed to work as a compromise.

"I might ask Geordi to let me look at the replicators if he doesn't have anything else that needs work." Barclay told her, sipped his coffee and grimaced. "That horse will never work again." he said, setting his mug aside. "How's your tea?"

"I'm not convinced it's fennel." she replied, "It's a toss-up between hemlock and the distilled sweat from a Bolian unicyclists underpants." She had left her toast half eaten and was reading from a padd as she sipped from her mug. "We're going to need to do something or we're all going to starve to death. Well, everyone organic anyway. No wonder the crew didn't leave any emergency rations or nutrition cubes behind."

"Stop it, you're making me drool at the thought of nutrition cubes. That's how bad those eggs are." He looked over at her, "What are you reading?"

"Your bucket list." she replied with a smirk.

He lunged for it but she was faster and was up out of her seat out of reach, he cursed her hybrid reflexes.

"I wrote that under the influence of an evil temptress…" he warned, and tried to corner her, "It's hardly fair to judge me on it."

She gave him a knowing look. "I would never judge you. But it isn't at all what I expected, and not a lot of this came from me. You are a dark horse Mr Barclay." she eyed him appraisingly.

"Oh God, I knew I should have deleted it." he sat and buried his face in his hands. She stood behind him and leant on his shoulder.

"I was expecting white water rafting, maybe orbital skydiving or riding a horse bareback on a beach, but this is… naughty." She grinned and ran her tongue over her front teeth. "Well, I'd be delighted to do item four, seven and twelve for you. I'd certainly do eight if you return the favour. I might even let you do ten and eleven after a couple of drinks. I don't have furry boobs like a Caitian but I'll give number three a go if you like. One may be logistically impossible given our height difference, but, I'm up for an experiment. I'd do number five right now if Ootani wasn't sitting over there." she whispered in his ear. "Number six will take some planning and we'll be in big trouble if we get caught…"

He turned and pressed his lips to hers cradling her face in his hand. "I really love you." he smiled.

"I really love you too." she whispered in reply and kissed him ardently.

It was a moment before they realised the motion of the ship had nothing to do with them. They parted as the Bastion shimmied with the unmistakable vibration of phaser fire against the shields. Without a word they left the room at a run, leaving Dr Ootani still sitting in the corner calmly eating cereal.

…

The ship rocked as the door opened onto the Bridge and Data, Geordi and Taryn arrived. It was chaos, Captain Maddox, Dan Ashby, and Dr's Zimmerman, Mitchell and Sheridan were there and not one of them had bridge experience, let alone command.

"Damage report!" Maddox ordered.

"Er." Ashby, looking flustered at the combined Conn and Ops station searched the console in a panic.

"I'll take the Conn!" Geordi shouted as he rapidly headed to relieve Dan. "Take the science station." he told the young ensign with a squeeze to his shoulder. "God I hate these combined consoles." he yelled.

"Bastion." Taryn ordered, shouting over the noise and clutching the back of a chair as the ship rocked. "Transfer Ops to Tactical Station Two."

"Thank you, now I can see what the hell I'm doing." Geordi yelled as his console layout changed to Conn only. "Commencing evasive manoeuvres."

There was an awkward moment when Data and Taryn both dived for the newly configured Ops station.

"Commander Data, I believe this is your seat." Maddox said rising from the command chair.

Data hesitated for a fraction of a second then stepped to the centre of the bridge.

"Shields are down to forty-three percent. We are under attack from a Sovereign Class Starship. It's the Odyssey." Taryn advised.

"Have they hailed us?" Data asked.

"No they just started shooting." Maddox explained.

"Open a channel."

"Hailing frequencies open." Taryn replied.

"This is the Federation Scoutship Bastion. Please cease your attack and stand down. I repeat this is a Federation ship, cease your attack and stand down." Data intoned.

Phaser fire rocked the ship once more.

"Forward shields down to thirty percent. Aft shields failing. Hull breach on Deck three section…" Taryn stated.

"The port impulse engine is not responding." La Forge reported.

"Commander Prior, transfer power from replicators and life support in all unoccupied areas to the shields. Hail the Enterprise and advise her of our status." Data instructed, "Bridge to Engineering." Data called, "Mr Barclay, can you get the port impulse engine back online."

 _"_ _Can't help you bridge, there's a g…gaping hole where it used to be."_

"Emergency force fields are holding. Structural integrity down to seventy-three percent." Taryn advised. "Our shields are now at fifty-three percent forward and twenty-six percent aft. Attempting to balance the shield strength. They are blocking all subspace transmissions sir."

Data sat in the command chair and activated the auxiliary tactical panel.

"Returning fire." Data stated and fired phasers.

"The Odysseys shields are down to eighty-four percent. No damage." She lurched in her seat. "Our shields are now at thirty-five percent." Taryn turned in her seat. "Commander, they have taken us into tractor tow."

"Commander Data." Dan commented examining the Science Station read out. "The Odyssey is empty, there's no-one aboard."

"Confirmed." Taryn said with surprise.

"Another self-aware ship?" Data asked Taryn.

"Not one I know of." Taryn advised.

"Modulate the shields Ms Prior, see if you can break us free from the tractor." Data instructed. "Mr La Forge, heading…" Another volley of phaser fire rocked the ship. "Heading 264-mark-63. Returning fire."

"Shields down to twenty percent. The Odysseys shields are at seventy-two percent, no damage." Taryn reported. "We are unable to break free of the tractor beam."

"Commander La Forge, let them take us under the secondary hull but maintain attitude so we are level beneath them. Commander Prior, eject the warp core on my mark."

"Sir, the ejection system is not online." she replied.

"Bridge to Commander Barclay. Can we eject the warp core?"

 _"_ _That last volley knocked out the automatic ejection system, I…I'll have to d…do it manually."_ Barclay replied.

"Make it so, but hold for my mark." Data ordered. "You have time to find an environmental suit."

 _"_ _The c…crew took them all when they evacuated, sir."_ Barclay replied, his tone resigned.

"We will do what we can to keep the force field up for you Mr Barclay." Data told him, exchanging glances with Taryn.

 _"_ _Thank you sir, it looks a c…cold day for a walk outside."_ Barclay replied.

"Bridge to The Doctor. If you haven't already, download to your mobile emitter and report to the main hangar."

 _"_ _Aye sir."_ The Doctor replied.

"Commander Prior, return life support to the shuttlebays. Bastion, prepare the Uhura and the Chekov for launch with automated systems."

 _"_ _Aye sir."_ Bastion responded.

"We may lose structural integrity if this works. Mr La Forge, please get everyone besides myself and Commanders Barclay and Prior to the Chekov and off the ship." Data stood and began walking around the bridge using various terminals.

"But…" Maddox protested.

"We will not be far behind you." Data assured him and watched as they filed from the bridge. "Commander Prior, please beam our guests from the brig onto the Shuttlecraft Uhura. Flood the cabin with anaesthezine gas and set it on autopilot away from the ship."

"Aye sir." she replied.

 _"_ _Barclay to bridge, standing by to eject the core."_

"Acknowledged. Commander Prior you have the Bridge." Data said and walked to the door at the rear of the Bridge.

Data headed straight for the Cybernetics lab, where his Mother was standing inert on the podium. Without hesitating for a moment he closed the panel on her forehead to reactivate her. She stared at him, her face a mask of alarm.

"But, no it can't be. Lore?" she asked.

"No mother, it is Data." he told her.

"But, oh my." her eyes flicked back and forth as she became aware of her systems and processes. "I'm an…"

"I will explain everything, but I urgently require your assistance." he told her, leading her by the hand from the podium and into the corridor. "We need to separate the computer core from the superstructure of this ship and we need to do it fast."

…

Barclay was less than thrilled with his part of Data's plan, especially as there was a high likelihood he'd be taking an unscheduled spacewalk at any moment without a suit. Typical, fate was going to royally screw him just when he'd found his perfect woman. One who'd agreed to fulfil some of his darkest sexual fantasies and had even told him she loved him, openly while gazing into his eyes, not in a back handed way as she had the night before during her post-orgasmic tantrum. Oh yes, he'd knocked the Orion insatiability myth out of the park on his first swing. Well, strictly speaking not the first swing, there was quite a bit of bat waggling involved but he definitely got her to the big league. His only regret was not getting to step up to the plate again. He'd hoped to bat a thousand, but that wasn't looking likely from the wrong side of the blast door.

It was a small ship and from his position in the engine bay he'd felt the vibration of two shuttles leaving the hatch and hoped to God that Data had put Taryn on one of them. If she was still aboard Barclay planned to haunt the android for all eternity. He may never be aware of his presence consciously but the engineer felt sure he could cause a malfunction or two at inconvenient moments. All things considered he wouldn't mind being reincarnated as a Gremlin. A Gremlin who could follow Taryn around and keep her busy with things to fix and out of harm's way. She might even take to wearing skirts at some point and he may even be able to take a crafty peek from underneath on occasion. Yes, that was his idea of the perfect afterlife.

 _"_ _Mr Barclay, stand-by."_ Data ordered.

"Aye sir." he replied, pulled up the respiration mask that was around his neck, braced himself against the framework at the bottom of the warp core and began breathing as steadily as he could muster. Hyperventilation was not an option right now, nor was panic. He knew the mask wouldn't give him long and wasn't designed for use in a vacuum but it might make a difference and buy some time. He doubted it would stop his lungs bursting due to air expansion under pressure, something that didn't hold much appeal to your average hypochondriac and Barclay in particular.

 _"_ _Good luck Mr Barclay. Three Two One MARK."_

He blew the hatch, the warning klaxon sounded and turned the final maglock to release the core. Then clung on for dear life.

He watched as the core disappeared through the force field and into space. It was then and only then that he realised the true nature of Data's plan and came seriously close to voiding his bowel in terror. The attacking ship was above them, he could even see the faint glow of the tractor beam that was towing the Bastion. Data was in effect firing an antimatter bomb at the secondary hull of the other ship and it was close, far too close. Never mind keeping the force field emitters running there wouldn't be enough left of the ship to put in a shoebox.

At least it would be a quick death.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

" _I'm scared_." Bastion's plaintive voice filled the bridge.

Taryn was shocked, while she had created Bastion she had never encouraged him to call her mother. While she could see the appeal and certainly felt maternal towards him, she didn't want him to feel dependent or imprint upon her, especially as she was mortal and she hoped he would outlive her, possibly by centuries. She didn't give him the gift of aspiration that made Data so special, instead she gifted him with the secure knowledge that whatever he was or became was exactly what he should be, Bastion. She knew he was capable of feelings, it was fundamental to his code. He was designed to be as much a part of the crew as any organic being on board, his emotions only tempered by his sense of duty, his professionalism, his loyalty. He wasn't a cold voice from a wall with an irritating habit of non-disclosure and stock responses, this ship was alive.

This ship was dying. The shields were failing, they were being towed in the direction of the Annex by a thing that wouldn't respond or be reasoned with. Just like Haftel, she thought mirthlessly. Structural integrity was dropping like a rock under the torsion of the tractor and there wasn't a thing anyone could do besides pump more power into the shields and fields from anywhere she could steal it and buy time.

The ship, her ship, was terrified. It was a perfectly natural response, she was all but petrified herself. What she had never expected was for the ship to begin pleading for comfort and reassurance. Like many mortally wounded young men have on the battlefield since time began he was calling for his mother, calling for her. It broke her heart. She had offered him words of comfort, woefully inadequate words she had to admit, but then she doubted the words existed for what she needed him to know. She couldn't even hold her child as he died, she realised as tears coursed down her face.

Data, the being her offspring had chosen as a father had done all he could. The core was now only held in place by cables that he hoped would break away when the ship broke up allowing the essence of Bastion to drift in the void intact. There was a chance it would work, she prayed it would work not just for the remarkable soul she had conceived but for Hayley and the many other holographic beings that had been stripped forcibly from their digital homes and uploaded to the ships core.

She was uncertain as to why Bastion had chosen Data, although she couldn't fault his taste in parent or protector. Small wonder Reg had been suspicious something was going on between her and Data, he probably thought he'd been actively involved in his creation as anyone would. Quite what he imagined was anyone's guess but the reality was far from romantic. She had conceived and birthed her creation entirely on her own, bathed in sweat, squatted in the hot, cramped core chamber with her foot wedged against the wall to try and relieve cramp and get comfortable… just like an organic birth now she came to think of it, minus the bearing down and squeezing him out of her tuppence. Considering the core was five metres wide, fifteen broad and two decks tall she was glad of that. Her baby sister had been ten pounds and still hadn't heard the end of it from their mother.

Speaking of the other man in her life she could hear how scared he was too. He hadn't even noticed he'd stopped stammering when he spoke to her but he'd stammered over his communicator. Things were getting dicey in Engineering, she could see it on her console and he was down there alone. She knew he was a capable engineer, among the best she'd ever encountered but he lacked confidence to the degree he couldn't always function. God knows what his parents were thinking. She was no councillor or psychologist but held a Master's Degree in Psychosocial Science and recognised a developmental stammer when she heard one. Hearing one in an adult was almost unheard of in the 24th century as, even if the cause was genetic children would commonly grow out of it or get treatment early on. Had they really let the son they had proudly named after his father and grandfather reach adulthood without actually listening to him speak? Or had they just chosen to ignore it just as everyone in Starfleet had until he practically imploded a photonic blaze of glory aboard the Enterprise. No, in todays enlightened society the crew had ridiculed him, referred to him as a vegetable and been surprised when he retreated to an artificial womb on the holodeck. Taryn was not at all that way inclined but if she got out of this alive and ever met Deanna Troi she planned to kiss her, frankly and fully on the lips for stepping in rather than seeing him dishonourably discharged, married woman or not. If Reg survived she'd even let him watch.

The thought of him, twenty metres aft and a deck down, the other side of a blast door was too much for her to bear. She wanted to call him, but she had no idea what she could say that he didn't already know.

Data was putting an emergency transporter armband on for her. She sniffed and wiped her eyes

"I've been dressing myself for quite a while now." she told him.

"I want to be certain the mother of my child gets to the Chekov in one piece." He smiled. She straightened the band on his sleeve in return. "I am sorry, had there been time I would have given him this but he had already brought down the blast door…"

She took the armband from his hand. "I know. Thank you." She forced a smile. "I don't know why but the Odyssey is ignoring the departing craft. It's going to be a tight squeeze on board, even for a Flyer-class but at least there's a shower and a crapper I suppose." She sniffed, "Out of all the battles I lost to Haftel I'm really glad I won the Chekov. Geordi will be at the limit of transporter range in 2 minutes, 25.376 seconds."

Data laughed at her parody of him. "For a cyberneticist you make a remarkable Ops Officer." he said warmly.

"It's all I ever wanted to be," she told him, "just like my childhood hero." she added confidentially.

He hugged her as though she were the sister he never had, the sister his mother had disturbingly wanted him to be. "When we get to the Chekov I will introduce you to my mother."

"Don't you think the poor woman has been through enough?" Taryn joked as Data walked to the command chair. She unzipped her top and slipped the armband meant for her lover into her bra. Not so much next to her heart as touching her boob. She hoped he'd appreciate the sentiment.

"Mr Barclay, stand-by." Data ordered.

 _"_ _Aye sir."_ Barclay replied. He sounded calm and confident, far more confident that she felt in her ability to keep him from being blown into space.

"Prior to La Forge, do you have a transporter lock on Barclay? His signal is intermittent from here and I need to re-route power from the transporters to the shields." she asked.

 _"_ _I can't get a lock on him either Taryn, his proximity to the warp core is scattering his signal. I'm gonna keep trying though."_ Geordi replied.

Data glanced at Taryn. "Good luck Mr Barclay. Three Two One MARK."

"The hatch is open. Warp core ejected. The force field is holding." Taryn reported. "The tractor beam has been disrupted by the proximity of the core."

"Moving us away at maximum impulse." Data stated, using the terminal next to his seat.

"Structural integrity is down to forty-eight percent, shields at forty-five. The core will impact on the enemy shields in ten seconds."

"All hands brace for impact." Data ordered, playing it by the book despite the fact there were only three crewmembers on board. "Adjusting our attitude to allow us to be carried on the shockwave."

 _"_ _Hopefully."_ Taryn added silently.

 _"_ _Chekov to Bastion, I still can't get a lock on Barclay."_ Geordi advised them.

The ship lurched as the warp core impacted on the Odyssey's shields and the containment field collapsed into a blinding flash of light that dissolved the shields and engulfed the secondary hull. The nacelles span in separate directions out of control, ripping through space, one missing the fleeing Bastion by inches, the other slamming into the hull of one of the smaller ships which exploded, scattering debris across a wide area. In the belly of the Odyssey, its own warp core breached obliterating what remained of the ship leaving nothing but floating debris.

"Which ship was that?" Data asked as the Bastion was rocked and buffeted. His forced calm slipping for the first time since he assumed command.

"The Uhura," Taryn replied, gripping her console. "Structural collapse is imminent, shields are down, we will lose power to emergency force fields in one minute 38 seconds."

"Geordi do you have a lock on Barclay." Data called.

 _"_ _Negative, there's too much radiation in the core chamber."_

"Activate emergency beam out." Data said and looked towards Taryn, with shock he realised she was standing right beside him. She activated his armband and stepped back as he beamed form the ship. She turned and ran.

"Bastion, I need you to give me a countdown to the field on the warp chamber hatch collapsing."

…

" _Radiation, just what I need."_ Barclay thought as he heard the warning echo through the empty chamber. Today was just getting better and better and with that warning any hope of being beamed out of the compartment evaporated. To think he'd naively considered the worst was over when a nacelle from the Odyssey whistled past the hatch at close range. He knew he was going to die, not in the hysterical, neurotic way he often thought he was going to die. This was really it. He would either be crushed to death when the hull collapsed like a tin can, be expelled from the ship under decompression, suffocate when the life support failed or be turned into southern fried Barclay when the radiation got high enough.

None of it was what he had planned during breakfast. He may have been talking about food and fixing the replicators but he was predominantly thinking about sex, the smell of her neck, the way she'd shiver when he kissed just the right place below her ear. The things he loved the most about her were just the things he could never have replicated with photons or known from a painting. He couldn't get her out of his mind and didn't want to.

It would just be him on the ship now, and Data of course. He'd clearly assumed command and was just the type to go down with the ship. It made him worry, who would be there for Taryn to turn to if she lost them both? The Doctor he supposed. He'd known her since she was assigned to assess his sentience after Voyager returned to Earth. The Doctor had been fretting about the 'iron-fisted bitch' of a trouble-shooter that was being sent from the Daystrom Annex for weeks. It wasn't till later she told him she'd signed off on his request for citizenship before she even met him. It was merely a formality as far as she was concerned. The letters of recommendation from those who knew him, Barclay included, had been more than enough and she didn't even extend the standard 'invitation' to be assessed at the Annex. Barclay finally met her a year later and put the all too familiar face to the name. The Doctor still wasn't a citizen however, the mills of Federation bureaucracy grind slowly; yet they grind exceeding small, to paraphrase Longfellow. But thanks to Taryn his status as a life-form was certainly more secure.

He suddenly wondered what would happen to the painting. He was an only child and there was no-one else for his father to leave it to. Who ever got it he hoped they would love it as much as he had and that they would never, ever meet the real thing. Of course he hoped she would find someone else and be happy, despite the fact it felt like a cardiac stress test whenever he thought of it. She was far too young and lovely not to be adored and worshipped by someone worthy.

He felt the air pressure shift, the field was starting to fail and that would be it. Well, there was no point in clinging on and delaying the inevitable so he relaxed his grip on the framework, only steadying himself as the ship was buffeted in the wake of the exploding Odyssey.

A noise surprised him, he turned his head to see the blast doors open on both levels of the core chamber. That shouldn't happen, not that it mattered. He could hear and feel that the Bastion was not long for this plane of existence. Poor Bastion, he'd hardly had a chance to live.

A noise above him drew his attention, it was the sound of someone's hands grasping a hollow metal tube, like the framework above him. They slapped it hard. He looked up and hoped to all that was holy that he was hallucinating. Taryn was swinging around the cross support that braced the two stanchions with the momentum of her jump. She released and caught the bar next to it, let go with one hand and turned then folded in half and braced her feet on the bar. The force field failed at the bottom of her rotation and she crumpled, gripping the pole with her thighs as the air escaping from engineering blew against her body. His tenuous grip on the structure failed and he frantically reached for a hand-hold as he was blown up the chamber towards the gaping hatch until he felt something grasp his wrist so hard he thought it might break, it was a green hand. He grasped her wrist in return and managed to somehow wrap his other arm and legs around the stanchion and clung on. She'd had the same idea as him and was wearing a respirator mask.

With alarm he saw the chairs from main engineering heading their way. One made a clean exit, the other slammed into her shoulder and arm, shattering the transporter armband and blood spurted from her collarbone before the chair completed its race to the void above them. He maintained the grip on her wrist but he could see she was struggling to remain conscious and was now only holding on with her legs, her other arm hanging limp and useless. As artificial gravity failed her blood began floating around her like dark green, disturbingly dark green marbles. He'd had a marble like that as a child…

 _"_ _Focus Broccoli."_ he thought, giving himself a mental slap. Now was not the time to go on a hypoxic reverie. Artificial gravity had failed, that meant they were weightless. It took less effort to move both himself and her, although he still had to fight the power of the decompression, but the rush of air blowing them out of the ship was ultimately going to stop as the emergency system shut down life-support to the compartment. It would be much easier to move when this occurred, aside from the fact they would be in a… No, he pushed the words 'vacuum' and 'void' from his mind and began trying to work his way down the stanchion. The number of orbiting green bubbles was increasing at an alarming rate and he realised she was no longer gripping the framework or his wrist, but he would not let her go. He'd float out of the damn ship with her before he would let go. He felt another cross-member with his foot that ran all the way to the upper walkway. He didn't need to go that far, he just needed to get them to the other side of the emergency bulkhead that bisected the beam and close the blast doors. It sounded simple when he put it like that, but it really wasn't.

The rush of air continued to tear at him and that meant either the life-support hadn't cut off or the compartment was breached into another section and decompressing via the open hatch. Either way the mask wasn't helping him breathe as the pressure of the wind against his chest wouldn't let him inhale. She was slipping from his grasp. He locked his knee around the framework and pulled her into his arms to get a better grip on her. It was then he felt it against his chest, his experience of breasts was not as extensive as he would like but even he could recognise when a bosom didn't feel right and hers felt like the outline of a transporter armband. He didn't know if it would work, the compartment was still irradiated but if he didn't act soon he was going to black out. He shoved his hand into her bra and activated the transporter.

He materialised in what looked like the Delta Flyer still holding her, gasping for breath and panting, pulled off her mask first and checked that she was breathing. He felt relief until he realised his uniform was soaked in her blood. It was spurting from her shoulder with every beat of her heart. He didn't cope well with blood in any colour, he'd even felt a bit queasy at the sight of Data oozing hydraulic fluid.

A woman with grey hair that he didn't recognise appeared at his shoulder.

"Lay her down and get pressure on that wound." she instructed in a mild Irish accent. She yanked a box from a storage compartment and lifted the younger woman's feet on to it. "Data, I need a hand, I've got one with an arterial bleed and one about to faint."

"I'm not." Barclay protested, looking a little green around the gills. "I won't faint." He meant it, but he was by no means certain he wouldn't vomit. He was maintaining pressure on her shoulder which was going someway to stem the pulsating flow of blood but he was acutely aware that part of her collarbone was emerging through her uniform between his fingers and her upper arm was at an unnatural angle. She looked terrifyingly pale, she could almost pass for a Vulcan. She was bleeding to death, if she hadn't already.

Data ripped the shoulder from her uniform, placed his hands over his and sunk his fingers between Reg's and into the wound. "I have it. You can let go." he told him. "Geordi, call The Doctor from the aft compartment and set environmental controls to maximum recycle and scrub." he shouted. Reg hadn't thought of that, when she lost consciousness she started producing pheromones. Reg removed his mask, she couldn't make suggestions while she was unconscious at least.

"This is your friend Taryn I take it? The one you were swearing your head off about when you beamed in?" Juliana asked, "And you must be Mr Barclay."

"I already apologised for that mother." Data told her as he maintained pressure on his friends shoulder.

"What she did was no worse than you did on the Scimitar, Data." La Forge shouted from the pilot's seat. "Now you know what it feels like. The Bastion just broke up. I'm scanning for the computer core."

"Are you alright?" the woman, Dr Tainer he assumed, asked Barclay as The Doctor appeared and set to work.

"I, Is she going to be okay?" Barclay asked desperately as he watched The Doctor.

"She's lost a lot of blood, something we can't replace at the moment, but she's fighting." The Doctor told him as he grabbed an instrument from his medkit. "Her subclavian artery is punctured rather than severed which makes it easier to fix. Can you move your index finger three millimetres to the right Data, and when I've fixed it I'm going to kill the pair of you."

"You'd better get in the shower," Juliana told Barclay, "It's not healthy to share bodily fluids."

"Mother?" Data gave her a look.

"Oh! In that case don't worry." she gave Barclay a knowing smile. "Now I know why she wouldn't leave the ship without you. This one never gives his mother the full story." she rolled her eyes. "Just like his father." she added angrily.

"Perhaps you could administer some hyronalin to Mr Barclay?" Data suggested to his mother.

She rummaged in the emergency medkit.

"This hypo is empty." she reported.

"Is there any adrenalin?" The Doctor asked.

She was way ahead of him, "Also empty."

The Doctor looked up at Reg, "How many rads?"

"200 or so." Barclay told him. "That was the last warning I heard. Not fatal."

"No, but you're going to get radiation sickness without treatment. That's her artery repaired. What hit her?"

"One of the chairs from Engineering when the compartment decompressed." Barclay told him. She opened the blast doors and…"

She started to come round, she groaned and reached for her injured shoulder but Data caught her wrist.

"If I were still an officer I would have you court martialled." Data said angrily.

She looked around in alarm then relaxed as she saw Barclay and smiled sweetly at him despite the fact he was drenched in her blood. "Green suits you." she said softly.

"It looks a lot better inside you." he snapped, "What the hell did you think you were doing you crazy minx?

"What was I doing? You weren't even holding on you daft idiot." she retorted weakly.

"I was resigned to my fate, taking comfort from the fact Data would have got you off the ship," Barclay shot the android a filthy look, "And I look up and see you swinging overhead like a crazed monkey."

"Do not blame me." Data protested, "She sneaked up on me and activated my armband. I…"

"Gentlemen, and I'm using the term loosely, you are upsetting the patient." Juliana chided. "You, shower, now, you're a walking biohazard and it will help decontaminate you." she told Barclay, "And you start cleaning up this mess on the floor… and walls and…" she ordered Data. "You have remarkable stroke volume young lady."

Barclay shot Taryn a look as he headed to the facilities. He was livid with her for taking stupid risks in a collapsing ship even though it had saved his life and he would have done the same for her in a heartbeat. She could have died in his arms, again. She returned his gaze then crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at him. He snorted, trying not to laugh and headed for the shower.

…

"The wind will change and you'll stick like that." Juliana warned her as she began to clean her up. "I know you're putting a brave face on it for your man, but you're not looking good."

"You're in hypovolemic shock and we're at least four hours from the Enterprise. It's time to heal like a Vulcan." The Doctor told her.

"I don't want him to think…I'll look dead and…"

"If you don't go into trance, you won't just look dead." The Doctor said bluntly. "You'll very shortly be dead."

"We'll look after him." the older woman promised and stroked her hair. The Doctor scanned his patient as she slipped into a trance and her vital signs dropped to levels only visible by tricorder.

"Doc, Dr Ootani is complaining of a slight headache and demanding to see you." Dan said, sticking his head through the door from the aft of the ship.

"What?" The Doctor snapped. "Tell him to take an aspirin and call me in the morning." he replied. "And see if there's any hyronalin in the storage unit back there, adrenalin will do at a pinch. What the hell were they thinking? No sickbay, no CMO just a slimy Mark V and they don't even bother to refill the emergency medical supplies. What kind of ship did we get abducted on?"

The android woman flew to her feet at the sound of the door and grasped an overall clad Barclay by the upper arms. "She's in a trance, she's fine." she explained as horror spread over his face. She led him over to the aft station and sat him down.

"She's in shock and we're too far from any synthesised blood. Her body is concentrating on healing itself, it's her best chance. Look." The Doctor showed him the tricorder readings. "She's still with us."

"I didn't know she could do that." Barclay frowned. "I think I'm…" he started to gag and Juliana grabbed him a bag and handed it to him in the nick of time. "That's not a good sign is it? If I'm already getting sick?" he asked The Doctor.

"Don't worry too much, the technical term we doctors use for a patient like you is a honker." The Doctor told him. "This compartment looks like someone went berserk with a chainsaw in the holonovel Vulcan Love Slaves 4. It's enough to make anyone queasy." He picked Taryn up gently and looked at Data and Juliana. "I'll need to repair these fractures on the biobed, it looks a tricky job and I'll need a hand with some traction from someone." Data nodded.

"Data, I've got the core on tow, but it's inactive and looks like it's taken a few knocks. I don't know how intact it is." Geordi said as he stepped up from the pilot's seat. "Holy sh.., I knew you guys were having an emergency but this place looks a mess." he looked at Taryn looking deathly pale and apparently dead in The Doctors arms, "Is she okay?" then he heard the sound of vomiting. "You guys seem to have this under control so I'll be in the cockpit." Geordi said and beat a hasty retreat. He'd seen Barclay toss his cookies enough times to earn a t-shirt on this trip already and handled more than enough drama from Starfleet's newest couple and today, he was the pilot, it made him exempt.

Data exchanged a glance with his mother and returned to removing blood spatter from the ceiling with a sonic cleaner.

"Are all your adventures like this?" Juliana asked.

"More often than you would think, but we usually have a more established hierarchical structure." Data replied.

"I see, you usually have someone to do your bitch work for you." Juliana chided cheekily.

"That is not what I meant." Data stated. "While we were on the Bastion getting fired upon some of us fell into our former roles as bridge officers and it was… orderly. This is not."

"You mean you like to be in charge." she laughed.

"Yes." Data replied, "Is that a bad thing?" he frowned at her.

"No, it suits you, you're very good at it. You get that from me, your father was quite frankly a pain in the arse in a crisis." she said curtly, "I loved the man but God knows he was a panicker." She paused thoughtfully, "You know, I'm in this predicament now for that very reason."

"Mother…" Data pleaded.

"Am I your mother Data? Or am I your sister?" she asked.

"Would you like me to leave?" Barclay asked looking up from his sick bag, feeling awkward.

"Of course you are my mother." Data argued, "He used synaptic scanning. You are the same person you always were."

"That's as maybe, but the fact is I can't help but think that he didn't really try to save me. That he just turned me into his next project and then got bored and moved on to the next one. That's why I left him, I didn't doubt that he loved me but I was always second to his work. What do you do Mr Barclay, what's your specialty?"

"Um, well I'm…" He wasn't happy to be put on the spot and it showed, "I'm a systems diagnostic engineer but I…I specialise in holography and communications."

"And what does your young lady do?"

"She works for a dictator who treats her like a slave and sends her into life threatening situations on a daily basis to provide him with sentient beings to experiment on." he said bluntly.

"While that is true," Data added, "She is an expert in artificial intelligence with a specialty in psychosocial development and is one of the best Ops Officers I have ever worked with."

"Really?" Reg asked, "I mean I know all that but she's _that_ good at Ops?"

"Were I still a commissioned officer and she not adamant she wishes to resign I would petition Captain Picard to make her part of the bridge crew, and I am not just saying that because she is my friend."

"So, Mr Barclay, would you expect her to give up her career, her research to work on yours?"

"No. I have told her I want her to resign, but she'd already decided to anyway."

"Mother, I _was_ that research." Data protested.

"Yes, and I love you dearly but I gave up a lot of opportunities to chase Noonien to Omicron Theta and then to that sweaty shed on Terlina III. I did it willingly but he never once asked what I wanted. He put me in an android body and he kept it a secret, he even let me turn into an old woman when I didn't have to rather than accept responsibility for what he'd done." she silenced Data with her hand, "I know he told you he had admirable reasons for what he did and he probably believed it himself, but I knew the man inside out and backwards and he was fundamentally a selfish fecker who believed he could do no wrong. That's why the nickname hurt him so much, it was a reminder that he actually was fallible."

"I should have told you the truth when I first found out what you were." Data said sadly. "I see that now."

"You never should have been put in that position, you did what you thought was best and will never blame you for that." she told him clasping his hand.

"Taryn can fix that." Barclay said distractedly, "She reset his aging program by accident, but she knows how to adjust it now. You can be whatever age you want." he looked away sadly. "As long as she wakes up."

"She will wake up." Data told him, "Her pallor had already improved by three shades before The Doctor moved her."

"It did?" Reg asked hopefully, "W…what if she won't stop?" he asked desperately. "What if she keeps nearly killing herself every other day? I don't know if I… can c…cope with it. What if Haftel has turned her into an adrenalin junkie?" He was starting to panic. "One of those thrill seeking m…maniacs who hack the safety p…protocols on the holodeck and throw themselves off orbiters."

Data crouched beside him. "She does what she has to, to protect those she cares about and what she believes in, not because she enjoys it." he explained, "You fit into both categories and that has made her take risks she otherwise would not and to be blunt, you have been doing the same. When this situation is over, the worst you will have to worry about is her landing awkwardly in the gymnasium."

Reg forced a smile, "I don't suppose I can ban her from going to the gym?"

"She would castrate you." Data said bluntly.

"I wish I was more…" he sighed, "That I was better at protecting her." He sighed again. "I meant it you know. I actually would have killed Eden for what he did to her." Data exchanged a worried glance with his mother and lowered his head.

"When the warp core hit the Odyssey one of the nacelles broke away and collided with one of the shuttles we had evacuated. It was destroyed." Data explained.

Reg's eyes widened. "Who was on it?" he asked with alarm.

"Eden and Young." Data stated.

"They couldn't avoid it?"

"There was no time to disable the weaponry, so I ordered Taryn to flood the cabin with anaesthezine to keep them out of the way."

"You did say you'd hold him for me." Reg whispered. He felt as though his stomach were being eaten away, and this time it wasn't the nausea. The thought that a shuttle containing people he regarded as friends and colleagues, even a raging bigot like Dr Ootani had been destroyed was unbearable, but this was somehow worse. He had wanted someone dead and it was his hand on the maglock that set the chain of events in motion. He could argue that Eden was a man capable of rape and sexual violence and in some ways was deserving but Young? He was a muscle bound moron but he didn't deserve to die.

"I gave the order. You are not responsible." Data told him, watching the mix of emotions that passed over the man's face.

"You aren't an officer anymore, you said so yourself." Barclay sat back and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "I didn't have to do what you said."

"I am certain I could claim that Captain Maddox issued me with a battlefield commission." Data said and sat on the floor next to his seat. He leant forward with his elbows on his knees and locked his fingers together in front of him. "You may be a gifted engineer, but I believe precognition is outside your skillset. It is certainly outside mine. I could not see beyond our being captured and taken to Galor IV and I was… I let my fear get in the way."

"How many evacuated from the Odyssey?" Reg asked, dreading the answer.

"None, because there was no one on board." Data replied.

"What? How is that possible?" his tone was incredulous.

"I do not know, the attack pattern it used was not intuitive, its focus was disable and capture. No attempt was made to stop the escaping craft. If it were an artificial construct it was extremely limited, yet too complex to be under conventional computer control."

"Could they have used the prefix code?" Barclay suggested. "Had the ship on remote?"

"That has limitations in terms of range." Data replied, then horror dawned on him and he stood. "Geordi, scan for any inbound ships." he ordered striding towards the cockpit.

 _Author's note._

 _Thank you for all your comments, it really is appreciated. I hope you are continuing to enjoy this story. Any and all comments are more than welcome even if there is something you don't like. I'm currently on chapter 11 of the sequel which will be entitled 'Pygmalion' it's a little more angsty than this story and less action so far although I still have to go through and edit what I have and it may change a fair bit by the time it's complete. I have ideas for at least two more stories after that so I'm afraid you're stuck with me for as long as the plot bunnies keep arriving on my doorstep._


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

All was finally quiet in the back of the Chekov. Once Taryn had recovered her blood volume The Doctor had literally slapped her awake as was necessary with Vulcan healing trances, although he'd waited until Barclay had visited the toilet to do it and Juliana had locked him in. He wasn't happy but he appreciated it was part of her recovery process and something he really didn't want or need to see. Besides he was far too ill to argue. More than two hours had passed and the nausea had worsened, he had begun to vomit blood and was complaining of a headache. Geordi had explained to Juliana that Reg was something of a hypochondriac to say the least, but as her father would have described it, she could see the man felt rough as old arseholes. The on-board replicator, while the organic beings on board had commented how much better the food and drinks it produced were compared to the fare on the Bastion, lacked the synthesiser unit which would allow them to produce the medications they needed. Quite why was a topic of some conjecture, but the general feeling she got was that whoever had made the changes to the ship and the shuttles had little or no consideration for the safety of those aboard. Something that appeared to sadden the green young lady sitting opposite her in a sleeveless top and not purely because the man she had risked her life for was unwell as a result.

Sat in the corner on the floor was the man introduced to her as Maddox, she'd heard of him of course and had her doubts about him but her son regarded him as a friend and that was good enough for her. He was deep in conversation with Dr Sheridan, or Lucy as she had introduced herself. Dan, tall, blond and handsome and boy did he know it was sitting against a wall playing cards with Bill, who seemed a very nice man who was missing his wife and family a great deal since his abduction and Dr Zimmerman, who was inordinately concerned for his photonic personal assistant named Hayley who was contained in the damaged core. Poor man, she doubted he realised just how much he was in love with her but it was obvious to everyone else.

The Doctor had used what little supplies he had to make Barclay as comfortable as possible, some analgesia and anti-emetics had allowed him to get some rest. He'd fallen asleep with his head on the exotic young woman's lap with her hand clutched to his chest. With his patient sleeping The Doctor gone to the main deck to silence the constant calls regarding a Zakdorn who had left the aft compartment as soon as Barclay had entered. No one, her son included appeared to have much time for this Dr Ootani. Apparently he was rude, abrasive and insulting. In other words a Zakdorn. He had apparently also made some ill-judged comments regarding green Orion women and the unforthcoming and reticent Mr Barclay had rearranged his nose for him, something that had received unanimous support. For a man who appeared to be painfully shy and extremely high-strung he had certainly ensnared a rare creature. Juliana had believed her to be a Vulcan, possibly hybridised with human as the cheeky face she had pulled was far from stoic as was her concern for the feelings of her nervous suitor. It wasn't until she had begun to recover that her Orion colouring had become apparent. She knew the girl had lost a lot of blood and was in shock, but the concern on her son's face only made sense when she saw the contrast in her complexion.

Her son's face. Captain Picard had seen to it that she was informed of his death as Data had listed her as his next of kin. A sweet gesture. She had mourned him as deeply as she would a biological child, as deeply as the prototypes they had lost tragically early, before they had really had the chance to live. Data had told her that Noonien was upset that he had joined Starfleet, that he had wanted him to be a cyberneticist, a chip off the old block. It didn't surprise her, but she didn't agree. Serving in Starfleet could be good for a young person uncertain of their direction and God knows they had given him precious little guidance. On the right ship with the right commanding officer she knew he would thrive. A pity it took fifteen years for him to reach that ideal situation as he had on the Enterprise, but life can be like that. Starfleet had given her son a sense of duty and a nobility that she doubted he would have gained otherwise. If those fine qualities had led to his death, then that was simply meant to be, much as it saddened her. It was far easier to bear than the reason Data had been forced to deactivate and dismantle Lore.

When she had awoken, and looked into the face of her former husband cast in pale gold bioplast skin she had believed it was Lore, it _was_ Lore, she was certain. Unlike her husband she had always been able to tell their boys apart although she had never been able to adequately explain how. It wasn't just their behaviour it was something about their eyes. Her son had looked hurt when she had called him Lore and that was when she knew. That expression so subtle that most would miss it had been obvious to her from the day Data was activated. It may have been Lore's face, but it was Data that was looking out of it.

He looked young, as young as he did when he had looked up at her as she had taught him to fasten his shoes, taught him to catch a ball and told him repeatedly to keep his clothes on while trying not to laugh. He had always been a sweet boy, innocent and guileless, but then at the start, so was Lore.

She was unclear on the chain of events that had brought this miracle about and given her back the child she had lost. The circumstances had prevented a full and frank conversation with her son but she knew the woman sitting adjacent to her had been instrumental. When Data had beamed in using language she had only previously heard from her mother regarding her choice in men she had wondered if romance was in the air, but it was soon obvious their relationship was one of friendship, admiration and mutual respect. All but one of the people she had met since awakening including the one who stirred, mumbled something about 'things' in the matter stream, turned over and curled up with his forearm under his head were clearly all protective of the girl with the green skin, but this was not thanks to the way Orion women usually engender those feelings, biochemical control. But by the fact she was cute, funny and inherently likeable. The most un-Orion of traits.

Taryn with her lap now free, wrested her hand from his grasp and disappeared into the main compartment.

She felt so much anger and frustration she thought she would burst. She wanted to know what the hell Noonien had been thinking of, but she already knew the answer. He hadn't been thinking beyond his own selfish nose as usual. He had even roped their son, their noble, principled son into his twisted scheme from beyond the grave.

Their gallant son, who had been the one to break the news to her that her husband, her life partner, lover, colleague and best friend of more years than she was ever with Noonien, was dead. She had regained a child, lost a soulmate and found that she was an elderly android with a pre-set death sentence in a matter of moments.

She sat in silence with tears streaming down her face. She found she was able to ignore the chronometer that not only marked the countdown to her demise but governed the rhythm of her processes. It made sense that she was able to avoid that awareness as it was not something organic beings possess. Her existence was a lie, a fraud. In order to pass for the flesh and blood being she had once been the man she had at one time loved more than life itself had cursed her with human frailty and robbed her of any advantage of being an android. The supreme irony was she could see the sense and logic of what he had done and had he asked her, she would have agreed to be scanned into a new body prior to her death, regardless of the risks. She believed in him and more to the point she believed in their work. But he didn't ask, he made yet another arbitrary decision just as he had decided where they would live, what gender their offspring would be and that they would all have his face. He always told her he valued her opinion but when it came down to it he did as he pleased. It was his world and she just lived in it.

She had no idea how long she had been crying for and honestly didn't care when she looked down and saw a green hand holding a handkerchief.

"I'm sorry, it's just… I've been so angry with Noonien I haven't really let myself think about Pran." the younger woman placed her arm around her comfortingly.

"I'm so sorry." Taryn told her, "Data told me he was a good man."

"He was, one of the best." she sniffed, "I thought I'd never find anyone else after I left Data's father, I certainly wasn't looking for a new relationship at all. I was looking for a change of career and I was fascinated by geology from a little girl so I took a punt and applied for a job with the Geological Survey on Atrea. He was on the team I was first assigned to. I was hesitant at first, it had been years and I still felt I was on the rebound." She smiled slightly through her tears, "He was so persistent and patient that I eventually gave in and met him for dinner." She sighed, "He was kind, attentive and although he valued his work I never felt I came second. Which was something of a novelty. One that never wore off." She looked at Taryn, "How was it with your man?" she nodded towards the sleeping figure on the floor nearby.

"It's still early days." Taryn replied, "I met him a year or so ago and until a couple of days ago our conversations were completely one-sided."

"You weren't interested?"

"No, he couldn't speak to me for stammering or look me in the face." Taryn replied. "I first saw him on the Bastion, the ship that just disintegrated into crap around us. It's a complicated story but he was surrounded by about forty or so corpses in body bags lined up in the corridor. He was white as a sheet and looked about ready to void his contents from every orifice."

"Sounds irresistible." Juliana giggled.

"I walked up to him, and told him everything would be okay, but before I reached him he gave me this look. It was as if he'd seen a ghost or something, but… I don't know, there was a longing in those big brown eyes, a sort of heartfelt yearning as if his soul just ached. Then I found out he was a friend of The Doctor who I already knew and I'd heard about some of his work. If he wasn't such a nervous wreck he could be another Cochrane. The man's brilliant."

"Ah, now I see the attraction." Juliana said and looked at Barclay sideways. "Although he's not doing a bad job of filling those overalls from where I'm sitting." she added.

"It hasn't gone unnoticed." Taryn smiled. "While we're on the topic, your first husband…"

"He was well into middle age when we met and things had started to go south if you know what I mean, but even then he had an arse you could bounce a shilling off."

"Really, because I've seen Data's, in my professional capacity of course." Taryn commented.

"Everyone on Omicron Theta saw that backside if they wanted to or not, he was always stripping off during his developmental stage."

Taryn laughed, "I know what you mean, my nephew is nearly three and he's a streaker. It's a common phase."

"Yes, well it's adorable when they're three, its indecent exposure when they have the anatomically correct body of an adult male. We got complaints. They started a petition." Juliana laughed. "Of course because he was modelled on Noonien he kept getting funny looks from some of the colonists, he felt they were undressing him with their eyes. He pretended to be embarrassed but he loved the attention, I could tell. For a man who rarely combed his hair he could be extremely vain."

"You see, I've always wondered if your boys were an idealised version of him rather than a realistic one."

"No, he had a full body scan done when he first decided to build androids, although he did admit to me he spent a lot of time at the gym on the run up to it. As I said, vain." She sighed, "It wasn't just the age difference that worried my mother, she always said he was far too cocksure of himself and in retrospect she was right. Pran was confident, but he was always grounded. The geologist in him I suppose." She smiled.

"Mine's a little too grounded. He doesn't just hide his light under a bushel, it's in a vault inside a thermocrete bunker fifty metres below ground. I worry about him, he's had a rough time of it by all accounts and sometimes I wonder if he really trusts that I love him and wont laugh, point and announce it's all a cruel joke."

"As you say, it's still early days." Juliana smiled. "And that's the price you pay for going for shy men, you have to spend a lot of time on ego massage." She sneered, "Mind you with the cocky ones you find yourself in an android body apparently so perhaps you have the right idea."

"I've never gone for cocky men, although I seem to attract them for some reason." Taryn mused, "No, give me someone tall, sensitive and intelligent any day."

"And a meaty arse and thighs always helps." Juliana laughed.

"Indeed it does."

"I feel so objectified." Barclay said, still lying on his side nearby.

"Admit it, you love it." Taryn smiled and knelt beside him.

"Of course I love it, I exist to be your man-bitch." he said moving on to his back.

"Yes and don't you forget it. How long have you been awake?" Taryn asked, stroking his forehead.

He put his arm around her and caressed her bottom, a surprisingly public display of affection for a man so shy. "Well, I heard that I'm brilliant, and the next Cochrane, but I suspect you might be biased because you like my butt so much." He laughed.

"You're really hot." Taryn said worriedly.

"Thank you, so are you." he replied and snorted.

"I mean you're burning up and shivering." she told him and touched her communicator. "Prior to The Doctor, we need you back here. His temperature is spiking." She turned and looked down at her man. "How are you feeling sweetie?" Juliana appeared at her elbow with a cold compress from the replicator.

"Like I have the flu." He laughed, "I really hope I don't turn into a spider this time."

"Okay." Taryn said, humouring him. "I think we're a little delirious." she said applying the cool cloth to his forehead.

"Apart from that I feel wonderful." he slapped Taryn's bottom.

"And I was just saying how sweet and shy he is." Taryn rolled her eyes. The Doctor crouched beside her and scanned him. "Is it the radiation poisoning?"

"Yes," The Doctor replied, "Let's get him out of these coveralls and on the biobed. We can use the thermal controls to cool him down."

Juliana noticed that the room was suddenly empty, typical scientists, as soon as someone was ill or they might have to get their hands dirty and do some work they did a runner. She helped Taryn and The Doctor get him onto the bed, they certainly needed the help. He wasn't exactly combative, amorous was probably more the word. Once Taryn had got him to strip down to his t-shirt and underpants, a relatively simple process considering the state he was in, it was all she could do to get him to stop.

"Reg," Taryn said patiently, "let's keep the twig and berries stowed away for the time being." she warned as she grabbed his waistband in the nick of time, preserving his dignity and pulled down his shirt, "No, I think I'll keep my clothes on thank you." She said, removing one hand from under her top and another from the back of her trousers.

"Are you sick too?" Reg asked Taryn, once they finally got him on the medical bed. "I'll make room for you if you want to lie down." he tried to wrestle her on top of him.

"She has some immunity thanks to the chlorophyll in her skin." The Doctor told him while Taryn resisted his efforts and tried not to giggle.

He giggled, "So you're like a plant. When we get married they'll be calling you Broccoli too, Mrs Broccoli."

"Barclay. Behave yourself." Taryn said grabbing his wrists and pinning them over his head to allow The Doctor to scan him.

He gasped, "Are you going to do number four on my list? What's that thing the British say when they're ill? I need to keep my pecker up." he giggled.

"I hate to disappoint you but we mean your nose." Taryn looked up at Juliana and rolled her eyes.

…

Taryn was worried about him as she gently dabbed his forehead and face with a cool cloth making soothing noises, it was more to settle him than for its therapeutic value although it did seem to help. Someone had gutted all the replicators making it very difficult to treat anything, let alone radiation poisoning. It was as though they'd been shunted back to the 19th century. Palliative care was one thing, but even at the birth of the atomic age they had aspirin and could treat a fever. The only useful anti-pyretic the replicator on the Chekov could produce was tepid water. She had her suspicions regarding why. If a retrieval went horribly wrong the survival instincts of the crew may lead them to destroy the life-form they were transporting. Limiting medical provision for the organic life on board tilted the odds in the favour of the AI. With the crew dead or evacuated they could send another ship to tow the Bastion or Chekov to the Annex with the AI still aboard. Haftel always valued his prize above the crew and even that wasn't saying much. She was still baffled regarding the encounter with the Odyssey, as was everyone else, although Reg's theory that they were using the prefix code was the current favourite. However unless they had found a way to increase the range it meant they were on borrowed time.

His fever had finally started to break, having gone from dangerous to high-grade then down to low-grade in what had felt like forever as she watched him sweat it out with only a damp cloth and the cool air of the biobed to treat him while The Doctor monitored his condition carefully. Juliana was a wonderful support during the process, she'd kept up the supply of compresses and always seemed to know exactly when a comforting arm around her shoulders would keep her from flagging or worse, bursting into tears. This wasn't a life threatening condition, despite the severity of his fever, even Reg had admitted that. But the symptoms were awful, painful and distressing for both the patient and anyone watching. She wasn't at all surprised everyone magically vanished into the main compartment unless he was asleep. The effects of antimatter radiation weren't at all pretty but in a confined space a man vomiting blood would most likely result in chain-chunder and set even the most robust of stomachs churning. As currently was hers. She was glad The Doctor had only told Reg a partial truth, yes she had some protection thanks to her Orion heritage but in her case it only meant her symptoms would be less severe and wouldn't manifest as quickly. She spotted The Doctor take a crafty scan of her earlier and frown, not that she wasn't already well aware she was getting sick. She knew what had happened, the force-field on the hatch was maintaining the integrity of the compartment but was performing below par and the compartment had filled with radiation from the breaching core. It was a miracle Reg had been able to beam them out at all. Perhaps her opening the blast doors had made the difference…

"That's lovely." he sighed and smiled at her, "If you're free could you keep doing that for a while?" she nodded and smiled. "Are you free for rest of my life?"

"You had me worried, you were delirious." she told him.

"Did I do or say anything embarrassing?" he asked.

"Nothing worse than I did last night." she smiled.

"Are you telling me I danced on a table singing show tunes in your bra and felt up Data's ass?" Barclay asked her.

Juliana howled with laughter, "Was that in your professional capacity too?"

Taryn shot her a guilty smile and returned her attention to Barclay. "The only arse you handled was mine. You even spanked it."

"Thank God, I'm not ready for Data to learn about my true feelings yet." he said sarcastically. "I'd look great in your bra though, but I'm not sure I'd be able to pull off a back-flip."

"It turns out after a few sherbets, neither can I." She smiled and kissed his brow.

"Did you just say I spanked you?" he looked worried.

She nodded and gave him an appreciative smile. "Do you think life will ever be normal?" she asked.

"Probably not, but I'll settle for less blood and puke everywhere."

"That sounds like a toast," She laughed, "Here's to less blood and puke everywhere."

"I'll drink to that." Geordi said as he joined them and grabbed a drink and a sandwich from the replicator.

"I'll remember that one for our wedding." Barclay told her.

"For starters, that's a forlorn hope at a Prior family event and that's the third back-handed proposal you've made in two days. I'm beginning to wonder what your intentions are." she said playfully.

"They're entirely dishonourable I assure you." Barclay said but she could tell he was lying, "What was the second one?"

"The Doctor mentioned my chlorophyll skin pigment and you called me a plant then said I would be called Mrs Broccoli when we get married."

Geordi choked on his sandwich. "Smooth Reg, I had no idea you were such a romantic." Geordi smiled.

"Actually, the first proposal wasn't much better." The Doctor commented, "He said he'd marry her so they could still play hide the floret when Haftel has her imprisoned for her various crimes against the Federation."

"That wasn't exactly how I put it." Barclay argued weakly.

Taryn shot The Doctor an icy look before turning her attention back to her poorly man and fussing over him.

"Haftel? Not Anthony Haftel?" Juliana asked.

"You know him?" Geordi asked.

"I did a freelance job for him while we were on Omicron Theta. It paid for Lore's phase discriminator." she replied.

"What kind of freelance job?" Taryn asked, suddenly feeling panicked, still clutching Barclay's hand to her chest.

"I designed a feedback processor that gave a false biosignal." She laughed mirthlessly. "Probably the same one my ex-husband used to convince everyone I was human."

"Haftel has access to technology that will hide androids from scans?" Geordi asked.

"Look, let's not panic, he doesn't have clue how to make an android work. If he did he wouldn't need us." Taryn reasoned. "But saying that…"

"What?" Geordi asked.

"It's just a rumour, a story, based on assumptions and partial truths." she said dismissively.

"Prior?" Geordi said with a warning tone.

"Well, this old bloke at the Annex who's basically retired but still potters about the Habitat Dome doing odd jobs likes to spin a yarn when he's had a drink or two, and one of his stories is about the planet, Galor IV." She looked worried, "He says that before the planet was designated it was an uncharted planet known as Mudd."

"Mudd, as in Harcourt Fenton Mudd?" Geordi snapped.

"Oh dear God." Juliana covered her mouth.

"Is someone going to fill me in on the details?" The Doctor asked.

"Harry Mudd was a notorious con man and smuggler who somehow ended up on a planet of alien androids that was a distant outpost of the Andromeda Galaxy who wanted to study him and ended up making him their ruler and naming the planet after him." Geordi explained.

"It was one of those Jim Kirk talks an artificial life-form to death incidents that set back cybernetics by about a century." Taryn said, "But I saw no evidence supporting the story and neither did anyone else I know there. In fact, I never saw any humanoid artificial beings there aside from holograms."

"I don't feel so good." Barclay moaned, "I need a bag…" he rolled onto his side and grabbed a sick bag again.

"How long till we rendezvous with the Enterprise?" Taryn asked, holding his head.

"Another hour or so." Geordi asked.

"It's fine, it's fine." Reg told her, "I just feel lousy." he forced a weak smile. "I'll be okay."

"Oh sweetheart," she said as wiped his upper lip with a dressing pad and held it under his nose. "Your nose is bleeding." she exchanged a worried yet knowing look with The Doctor. This was all part of the fun of radiation poisoning, his mucous membranes were breaking down.

"I'll tell you one thing Reg." The Doctor said, handing her more dressings. "This relationship has worked wonders for your hypochondria."

"Speaking of hypochondria," Reg said nasally, "Is this going to make me sterile? I mean, obviously we haven't discussed it yet, but either way I don't like the idea of firing blanks."

"Not necessarily." The Doctor told him in a low voice. "It may not feel like it but you've only had a mild to moderate dose. There is… No it can wait till after you get some treatment."

"What?" Reg asked looking concerned but at least his nose has stopped bleeding for now. "What's wrong?"

"This isn't really the best environment to discuss this sort of thing with you both."

"Doctor, don't make me get a photonic gauntlet out of the locker." Taryn threatened.

"I had a closer look at your genetic screen Reg, and I'm already familiar with yours Taryn," The Doctor glanced at her, "and there's something of an incompatibility."

"What kind of incompatibility?" Barclay asked with a frown.

"Well between your anomalous genetic chemistry," he turned to Taryn, "and your hybrid DNA and reproductive system…"

"Are you telling us we can't have children together?" Taryn asked, trying not to panic. It was true they hadn't discussed children but she knew Reg wouldn't cope well with the idea that being with him had robbed her of them.

"I'm not saying that at all, but your chances of conceiving naturally are extremely slim. However when the time comes there are a number of options we can explore…"

"We?" Taryn exchanged glances with her stricken lover. Despite her telepathic shortcomings she knew in her bones he as thinking exactly the same thing as her.

"No offence Doctor, when the time comes we won't be consulting with you." Reg told him.

"Why not, as your doctor I'm familiar with…"

"Yes, and you're a wonderful doctor, but we know what you're like." Taryn added. "When it comes to babies you go all…"

"Ga-ga." Reg continued from his prone position on the biobed.

"Yes, ga-ga." Taryn confirmed.

"Ga-ga?" The Doctor asked, glowering.

"We both share mutual friends with you, I know Sam Wildman,"

"and I know B'Elanna and Tom," Reg added.

"and while it was very cute that you referred to Naomi and Miral as 'our baby' God knows what you'd be like if you actually helped conceive one."

"When we have children they will only have two parents and they'll be us." Reg told him.

"But I can't think of anyone better to deliver them." Taryn said.

"Nor can I. Although Dr Crusher would be good too." Barclay added and looked at Taryn with a shocked smile on his face. "Did we just decide to have a family?"

"I think we did," Taryn smiled, "but not yet."

"No. definitely not yet." he agreed and smiled at her. "Oh." his nose had started bleeding again and Taryn was there with a pad at the ready.

"Well, despite being tag-teamed by both of you may I be the first to congratulate you on your decision." The Doctor smiled to himself as he pottered about the compartment. Taryn strongly suspected he was thinking about baby smell and little feet. She idly wondered what the quirk was in his subroutines that made him so broody and paternal.

"You know I never thanked you all for saving Data." Juliana told them, breaking the silence. "I still can't work out where you got his matrix from."

"Well, Data downloaded his net to B-4 just before he was destroyed." Geordi explained. "I thought you knew."

"B-4?" Juliana asked. "We never made a B-4, just a 1, 2 and 3 that we lost to cascade failure." a look of realisation and fury appeared on her face. "That stinking rat bastard." she spat. "That's why he was so damn sure Lore's positronic matrix wouldn't fail. He built another android without me." She put her hands on her hips. "I even know when it was, he said he was going to a conference on micro-hydraulics." She marched into the flight deck past the researchers squatting there and cuffed Data on the back of the head.

"What?" Data said, his expression one of hurt feelings. "Did I do something wrong?"

"That's for not telling me about your brother." Juliana told him, wagging her finger. Then turned on her heel and returned to the rear compartment.

Geordi had followed her in and took his place at the pilot's seat, trying not to laugh, but a low chuckle broke through.

"What is so funny?" Data asked moodily.

"You just got bitch-slapped by your mommy." Geordi laughed.

"Shut up Geordi." Data said sullenly, pulled one foot onto the seat and crossed his wrists over his shin, resembling an indolent, stroppy teen. An alarm pulled him from his sulk. "I have a ship on an intercept course. It is the USS Bozeman."

"Here we go again." Geordi commented. "Could this be where they were controlling the Odyssey from? I can't believe they only just caught up with us."

"I do not know what is going on." Data said, "But I do know that if we fight we cannot win and may not survive the attempt. They will be within transporter range in one minute thirty seconds." He opened a channel to make a ship wide announcement. "I am about to transmit our unconditional surrender to the Bozeman. Prepare…"

He stopped as three Klingon ships shimmered into view in the cockpit viewport. Two were Birds of Prey which accelerated in the direction of the Bozeman and engaged it in battle while the third, a Vor'cha class battle cruiser hailed them.

 _"_ _Federation Shuttlecraft Chekov, this is Ambassador Worf in command of the Bortas. You have clearance to enter the main hangar."_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

After docking in the hangar bay of the Bortas, Data and Geordi were escorted directly to the bridge where Worf was waiting in his ambassadorial robes. He greeted Geordi with his normal stoicism, but that faltered when he saw Data, whom he embraced as though he were a long lost brother. Had he not been an android Data suspected he would need a number of ribs fused following the Klingon's bear hug.

"Ambassador Worf, could you please arrange for the computer core we had under tractor tow to be beamed aboard?" Data requested.

"Already done." Worf replied. "We are now cloaked and have set course to rendezvous with the Enterprise." He gave an order in Klingon to one of his subordinates and led them to an office off the bridge. "We had great difficulty locating you. When we found the wreckage of the Bastion and the Odyssey we feared the worse but Captain Picard relayed details of your course after you advised them of your situation."

 _"_ _Doctor to Data."_

"Go ahead Doctor." he replied.

 _"_ _We have a situation down here in the medical bay."_

"What is the problem?"

 _"_ _Daggers drawn, death threats, profanity and general chaos, that sort of thing."_

"I will accompany you." Worf intoned.

"We are on our way Doctor." Data replied and the three men headed for sickbay.

The Doctor had not been exaggerating. They arrived to find Barclay, pale and bright-eyed with fever wearing sweat soaked Starfleet issue undershirt and shorts, clutching a lethal looking surgical instrument, surrounded by five armed Klingons ordering him, in Klingon, to stand down. The Doctor was having a heated argument with the ships surgeon in idiomatic Klingon with a ceremonial knife held to the hologram's throat, to which he was both invulnerable and ignoring. The surgeon kept repeating the word's 'murdering whore' in his mother tongue and The Doctor in return was calmly replying that he had the wrong woman. Worf entered the fray, but had little effect as the surgeon argued that it was a point of honour and would not back down from his position. Data placed his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and emitted an extremely loud, tuneful whistle that silenced the room.

"Data, you whistled." Geordi whispered. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Nor did I." Data said with a slight smile on his face.

Worf gave him a grateful nod, "You will show my guests the honour of speaking their language in their presence." Worf bellowed and turned to the guards surrounding Barclay. "This man has been my comrade for many years and you dare to threaten him with weapons? Leave this place." he ordered and they left the room. He twisted the blade from the hand of his surgeon and grasped the man's throat with his other hand. "You dare to hold a blade to the throat of a Starfleet officer, an ally? Explain yourself?"

"She murdered my brother." the surgeon spat. "I have the right to claim her life."

"She is his mate and he has the right to defend and avenge her." The Doctor countered pointing at Barclay.

"Where is Commander Prior?" Data asked the surgeon, he didn't like the sound of the word avenge.

"I do not know anyone named Prior." the surgeon answered insolently.

"Where is the woman of whom you speak?" Worf demanded.

"The guards took her." The surgeon laughed. "I told them to throw her into the cells with the Nausicaan scum the captain is holding Diplomat." he made the word sound like the ultimate insult. "She will not be so pretty by the time they have finished with her."

Data restrained Barclay from killing the man with the instrument he was holding as Worf barked an order over his communicator in Klingon aside from the word Barclay which seemed incongruous in the phrase. Data took the device from Reg's hand and signalled Geordi to come and restrain him, then headed over to the drug synthesiser unit.

"What are you up to?" The Doctor asked, joining him while the argument raged on and Data's hand flew over the keypad.

"While we wait for this matter to be resolved Mr Barclay's condition is worsening. I am endeavouring to decipher the code to unlock this device." Data replied.

…

Taryn knew very little about the internal layout of Vor'cha battlecruisers but had the distinct impression she was being paraded through the ship. She was double cuffed at the wrist and upper arm behind her back in her blue tank top and was throat gagged, a device that froze the vocal chords of a prisoner. Normal precautions for a captive Orion female, but overkill for a five-foot sod all woman who wasn't actually releasing pheromones.

It wasn't that they were scared of her, they were Klingons, fear wasn't in their vocabulary. But history had taught them that green women were as sly and subversive as any Romulan and an enemy they couldn't fight with strength. Before the Orion's held a position of neutrality, back in the days when there were slave-markets on a daily basis as a front to get female operatives onto ships and planets many Klingons purchased green women. They found them irresistible and fascinating then found that younger males in the family were becoming obsessed with them and mysteriously dropping dead. No, it wasn't fear she saw in the crews eyes. It was hatred. The cuffs were killing her back and shoulder so soon after bone fusion and although she hadn't mentioned it she'd been getting a few twinges after her drunken tumble, nothing bad enough to see The Doctor about but with her upper body restrained like this she was rapidly going into spasm.

A young officer approached from an intersecting corridor and barked at the guards escorting her in Klingon which she didn't understand at all. She was no linguist, she could just about order a drink and ask where the loos are in Vulcan, spoke passable High and Low Orion albeit with an English accent as she had spent a lot of time visiting Barin Prime as a child and adolescent and it was expected of her, could never get to grips with Welsh despite her father's urging and knew sign of course, but she really wasn't wired for languages other than computer code. She had to really work at it and the fact was most Klingon's avoided her like a plague so she never saw the point.

The guards froze momentarily, hesitating over what to do, then appeared to acknowledge his order and stride away. The young man gave another order and the corridor cleared, the crew returned to their duties and the officer stepped towards her and reached out to her with his hand. She flinched and pulled away.

"Don't be afraid." the Klingon said and removed her gag, fixing her with his blue-grey eyes that held neither fear nor hatred, "I know Mr Barclay. I grew up on the Enterprise." he released the cuffs at her back. "My name is Alexander Rozhenko."

"Taryn Prior." she responded and smiled weakly, rubbing her shoulder and upper arm. "Thank you."

"My father has asked me to return you to the medical bay to resolve this situation. Did they injure you?" he asked as she continued to massage her shoulder.

"No I was, well I had my clavical and humerus fused earlier today and those cuffs were uncomfortable." she replied as she walked with him.

"Your clavicle? I see." the young man smirked. "I didn't know Mr Barclay had it in him."

Taryn frowned at his comment, then was distracted by raised voices echoing down the corridor.

"If you have an accusation to make against a Starfleet Officer you will bring it to me, not threaten the lives of allies to the Empire." A deep male voice instructed.

"She is the same green Orion woman with pointed ears that caused the death of my youngest brother. He was young and she seduced him, raped him, drove him mad with her stench until he died of pheromonal shock in her bed." another voice stated.

"That's a lie!" Barclay shouted, and there was a scuffling sound.

"And you claim this is the woman these men know as Prior?" the basso profondo voice asked.

As they entered the room the situation had improved marginally, there were certainly more people present on their side and it was much less like a bad Klingon opera. The Doctor and Data were busily working at a terminal while Geordi restrained her man and a large Klingon in ambassadorial clothing held the ships surgeon by the throat. She ran towards Reg and Geordi.

"Did they hurt you?" he asked picking her up in his arms, he felt hot, burning hot as she held the nape of his neck as he held her against him.

"I'm okay. Are you okay?" she asked as he pressed his forehead to hers then kissed her, his lips felt like fire against hers and he was shivering with fever. Without the cooling system on the Biobed his fever had returned and no-one had treated his condition since they arrived. "For God's sake, you're supposed to be a doctor, how can you leave a patient in this state?" she asked the Klingon medic.

"I'll see your mate die before your eyes as you watched my brother die and spit on his rotting corpse before I'll lift a finger to help him."

"You can watch me treat him instead." The Doctor advised him, pressing the Klingon equivalent of a hypospray to Barclay's neck. He moaned softly, as he always did with hyposprays so she kissed the place on his neck.

"I could get to like hyposprays if you keep doing that." he whispered.

"How did you get that?" the ships surgeon asked.

"Your encryption lock was remarkably easy to decipher." Data replied holding a tray of assorted medications for The Doctor, "It appeared to be based on the premise that no one would dare try."

"You will pay for that insult!" the Klingon declared.

"As will you for your incompetence." Worf warned.

"Look, I don't know your brother." Taryn reasoned, "I don't know you, I've never seen you before today."

"Your lies will not spare you Tira Barin."

"What? Tira Barin is my mother." she exclaimed.

"More lies!" the man raged. "I will have my revenge."

"Well you'll have to join the queue because it's a bloody long one and I'm first in line. She couldn't even be bothered to finish gestating us and had my twin and me transferred to a natal chamber during the first trimester then strutted off in spiked heels without a backward glance."

"She can prove it." The Doctor said scanning her with his tricorder. "What do you know about the woman who killed your brother, genetics, age?"

"She was the bastard child of a green woman and a Vulcan. She looked the same age as this woman sixteen Earth years ago. Vulcans do not age as fast as many species." The Doctor handed him the tricorder. "This cannot be!" he roared.

"Scan her yourself, the results will be the same. This woman may be an Orion Vulcan hybrid phenotype but she is half human and only twenty-eight years old. The daughter Tira Barin abandoned." The Doctor stated. "She is Lieutenant Commander Taryn Prior."

"You fool!" Worf roared. "Had this woman been harmed I would kill you were you stand."

"She should pay for her mother's crime." the Klingon argued.

"Have you no honour? She is not the woman you seek and is also her victim."

"Living among humans so long has weakened your blood." the surgeon hissed.

"Worf looked carefully at the man's eyes and squinted. Then almost smirked with realisation. "Stealing narcotics from the ships pharmacy has softened your brain. You are relieved of duty." He barked an order over the communicator again and two guards appeared and escorted the former doctor from the medical bay.

"He said he ordered you into a cell with Nausicaans, I thought…" Barclay held her hand as he sat perched on a stool as The Doctor continued treating him, but it was already clear his condition was improving.

"He's full of it, I didn't see any Nausicaans. He was just trying to provoke you." she told him, omitting the fact she never actually got to the cells.

"Thank you for finding her Alexander." Barclay smiled at the young warrior. "It's good to see you again."

"You too Mr Barclay." Alexander replied and shook the man's hand, "Nice to meet you Commander Prior." he nodded.

"Thank you Alexander, you may return to your duties." Worf intoned.

"Thank you Father. Mr Data, Mr La Forge." he acknowledged as he left.

"Under the circumstances I decided to send the only other Klingon on board who would realise her importance at the mention of your name." Worf smiled, "I apologise that you have been treated so shabbily in a ship under my command."

"I'm sorry we caused so much trouble." Barclay said. "Um, This is Taryn my er… Mate. This is Ambassador Worf." Taryn shook his hand.

"How long have you been a couple?" Worf asked politely.

"Well, not long, a day or two but..." Barclay admitted then blushed. He noticed Taryn was rubbing her shoulder. "Is your collarbone okay? Perhaps it didn't knit properly."

"No, it's just a bit sore." she replied with a smile.

Worf let out a belly laugh and slapped Barclay on the back.

"You defended your mate like a Klingon Mr Barclay. We may not have always seen eye to eye regarding the… artistic content of holodeck programs you helped Alexander with, but I always appreciated your making time for him." He shook Barclay's hand. "Congratulations to you both. If you will excuse me." he stated and swept from the room.

"What was all that about?" Barclay asked The Doctor.

"In Klingon culture it is very auspicious to break a clavicle in the course of your wedding night and you did make quite an impressive stand on her behalf." The Doctor explained. "Even if you were half out of your mind with delirium."

"The last time I saw Alexander he was so big." Barclay indicated his height with his hand. "Nice kid, very bright. He was always picking my brain about the holodeck. I'm surprised he's serving on a Klingon ship. The last thing he wanted to be was a warrior when he was small." he told Taryn.

"Artistic content?" Taryn asked with an arched brow.

"Miss Langford's House of Pleasure." Geordi laughed.

"Look, I was just adding some realism to the kid's Ancient West program."

"You added a brothel?" Taryn asked.

"Besides, Worf was angrier that these two corrupted the computer core, he got shot and nearly had to kiss Data to end the program." Barclay said, ignoring Taryn's question.

"I do not believe that statement adequately describes the situation." Data argued, "The character in question merely resembled me."

"Yeah, she resembled you in a dress." Geordi sniggered. "And if he was so angry with us why did you spend the next month hiding from him?"

"I wasn't hiding… exactly." Reg argued. "Some of that time I was sorting out the mess you made trying to turn Data into the ship's computer."

"Oh, unlike the mess you got us into when you turned yourself into the ship's computer?" Geordi argued.

"Indeed." Data added.

"That was completely different." Reg protested, then realised Taryn was staring, still waiting for an answer to her question. "Yes, I wrote in a whorehouse, with floozies dangling over the balcony outside. It was to add frisson to the scenario."

"It added frisson alright." Geordi smiled.

"What's wrong with your shoulder?" Reg asked noticing she was massaging it again. "Doctor?"

"What? Oh it's a spasm, I'm fine." she replied.

"Spasm, what kind of spasm?" Barclay asked in a panic.

"The spasmy kind." She rolled her eyes. "It's nothing."

"Doctor? You need to look at Taryn again, she may have a torn rotator cuff, or some kind of acromioclavicular joint disorder." he looked panicked "Oh God its adhesive capsulitis isn't it?"

"Taryn, gentlemen." The Doctor said solemnly. "We are present at the emergence of a new Barclay neurosis." he said as he scanned Taryn's shoulder. "Hypochondria by proxy." He snapped shut the tricorder. "It's a muscle spasm in her trapezius." He began to massage it for her. "Is that better?"

"Ooh yes." she moaned, "Thank you." She closed her eyes.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Barclay exclaimed.

"It's called massage." The Doctor replied sarcastically.

"Yes, I know what it is and I also know she shouldn't be enjoying it so much." Barclay protested and pulled her away from The Doctor.

"Good grief." The Doctor commented. "I'll give her a muscle relaxant instead although massage has fewer side-effects…"

"What kind of side-effects?" Barclay asked, holding her against his chest protectively.

"Reg, you're squashing me." her voice was muffled against his shoulder.

"Dizziness, dry mouth, drowsiness, dependency, urinary retention…" The Doctor told him.

"What? You want to turn her into an addict who can't pee?" Barclay protested.

"Stop it both of you!" Taryn demanded, extricating herself from Barclay's embrace. "Doctor, stop antagonising him, it isn't funny. Reg, perhaps you could rub my shoulder for me if you don't want The Doctor to do it and as for you two," she turned to Geordi and Data. "Don't you have something better to do than to stand there like you're watching a bloody play?"

"Actually, no, we don't have anything better to do. Do we?" Geordi replied.

"No." Data stated, shaking his head. "Please continue." Taryn rubbed her forehead tiredly.

"Do you have a headache?" Reg asked her, then flinched at the look she shot him. She did have a headache, she felt hot and she felt queasy. She felt something warm on her top lip. "Oh God, Doctor her nose is bleeding. They did something to her."

"No they didn't, she has radiation poisoning." The Doctor told him. "I was hoping to get her to the Enterprise before she became symptomatic." He gave her a shot of hyronalin. "I'm not sure about the quality of this Klingon medication given that this sickbay looks like it doubles as an abattoir that hasn't been cleaned in weeks."

"You weren't going to tell me?" he looked at her, a hurt expression on his face.

"Well, I have some immunity, so I won't get a sick as you." she replied, holding a handkerchief to her bleeding nose. "And it takes longer for symptoms to appear." Data and Geordi were still watching the interplay between herself, The Doctor and Reg. Geordi with his arms folded and a grin on his face, Data with his hands at his sides but an expression of mild amusement. While she was pleased they had managed to find some entertainment, scrutinising the dynamic of their new relationship wasn't good for Reg's ego and wasn't doing a lot for hers.

She turned her back to Reg and pointed to an area on her shoulder. "Put your thumb there." she instructed. "Now rotate it clockwise, a little slower…"

"Like this?" he asked.

"Hmm. Now press with your first two fingers an inch above and squeeze. Yes, but a little harder…" She let out a breathy sigh.

"I'm not hurting you am I?" Reg asked. "Only this isn't what The Doctor was doing."

"The Doctor is was doing osteopathy, this is Vulcan neuropressure." she replied tilting her head. "Hold on, I'll take my top off so you can get deeper." She crossed her arms and grasped the bottom of her top. "Do you have any oil Doctor?"

"Whoa, now you mention it, we really should find out where the others are." Geordi blurted.

"Yes," Data agreed hastily, "I should also speak with Worf about…"

"That thing." Geordi suggested.

"Yes, the thing." Data said, flustered. They both left the room looking embarrassed.

Taryn shot Reg a wolfish smile over her shoulder.

"Did you just frighten them off with your breasts?" Reg asked.

She nodded, "And I didn't even have to flash them, although I think it was more the idea of seeing what you might do with them that scared them off." she replied. "What did you think of your first neuropressure lesson?"

"I'm disappointed you still have your top on." he whispered.

"I'll show you more later, when we're alone."

"Neuropressure or you?"

"Both," she smiled, "although we could try to get The Doctor to leave the room." She gave the physician a sly smile.

"It'll take more than you threatening to strip down and grease up." The Doctor said examining a Klingon surgical instrument. "Every time I leave you both unsupervised you end up maimed. The pair of you need a chaperone."

"Hmm," she said as Reg began to rub her shoulders. "Considering we met and got together there I don't think the Bastion was a lucky ship for us."

"That's an understatement." Reg replied.

"You'll both need to stay here until I can transfer you to the sickbay on the Enterprise, you'll probably be there for a day or two and require further treatments for a few days."

"Fine." Barclay replied distractedly, as he massaged Taryn's shoulders eliciting a sigh.

"That is really…mmm. Keep this up and you might get the shock of your life next time you propose."

"Is that a promise?" he whispered in her ear.

She smiled, he had no idea how close she had come to saying yes to his proposal as they had battled with Vortigon. If eight minions of hell hadn't been bearing down on them with swords she would have. But she realised as she ripped the heart out of someone's chest, that although she was ready for that level of commitment, he wasn't. Oh she knew he meant what he had said, he meant it with every iota of his being but there were things he needed to know before they took that step and he needed to trust her more to understand them. Besides, it wouldn't hurt him to jump through a few hoops before she gave in.

"More of a threat." she replied with a cheeky smile.

"You could just move in with me." he suggested, "Well, me and Neelix if he hasn't starved to death."

"That might be a problem," she replied, "I sort of live with someone else too. Ow. Shit!" she exclaimed as he suddenly squeezed really hard. Her case in point, although she could probably have phrased it better. "Bloody hell. I meant I have a cat too you daft bugger." She turned to face him, her hands on his shoulders.

"You have a cat. You nearly gave me a myocardial infarction because you have a cat." Barclay yelped. "What kind of cat?" he asked with interest and put his hands on her waist.

"Well he's not exactly mine, he's a gift from the Universe. He was a stray who just moved in one day and I tried to find his owners for months but never did. He's a British Blue, he's lost an eye at some point so they called him Nelson around the Annex, but I call him…"

"After Nelson Mandela?" Barclay interrupted.

"Yes, because Mandela was a famous British cyclops." she said sarcastically, "The Admiral you prat, Horatio Nelson. Trafalgar? Kiss me Hardy?"

He pulled her closer, dipped her and kissed her with brazen passion.

"What was that for?" She smiled, slightly breathless and still in his arms.

"You asked me to kiss you hardy." he replied.

"That isn't what I meant."

"I don't care." He kissed her again then stopped suddenly. "Well, I do care I mean…" She silenced him with her lips.

"Pheromones!" The Doctor shouted. "Break it up you two."

"I forgot about our third Nacelle." Reg said darkly.

"So did I." Taryn replied and reluctantly allowed some space between them but remained in his arms.

"So what I meant when I said there might be a problem, Ratio looks like a pirate and was a stray for years. What if Neelix doesn't want him in his home? Two toms can be a problem sometimes."

"To be honest, Neelix is more likely to have an issue with you."

"Oh nice." Taryn sneered.

"No I mean he sleeps on top of me, on my stomach. He can be a little possessive."

"Ratio sleeps on the small of my back." Taryn told him.

"That sounds uncomfortable." Reg commented.

"I rarely sleep more than two and a half hours a night so…" then at his expression added, "What's wrong?"

"Well it's, I'll still be sleeping alone…"

She sighed and pulled him close. "I spend quite a lot of time reading and doing research. I could always do that in bed." she whispered. "Would that work as a compromise?"

"Does this mean you'll move in?" he whispered into her shoulder.

"I have a confession to make first." Taryn admitted and felt him tense under her hands. That was it, the marker. The day he trusted that her confession wasn't going to rip his heart out or involve some elicit sexual adventure he'd be ready and if he didn't ask her again in short order she'd bloody well propose herself. "While you were asleep on the Chekov I called one of my brothers and asked him to check on Neelix and take him to stay with Spot at my Grandma's."

"That's… Thank you." he said genuinely touched.

"Don't thank me yet, he's probably drunk all your booze and gone rifling through any pornography you have while he was there. He's like a perverted alcoholic sniffer dog. Oh and I should warn you about his trademark, you might want to clean your loo before you use it and I'd replace anything you clean your teeth with if I were you."

"I don't have any porn, or alcohol for that matter." Reg sniffed, "I'm really rather dull."

"No you're not. I wouldn't be moving in with you if you were dull."

"Wait, how will he get in?" he asked looking up from her shoulder.

"He's a thief." she replied bluntly.

"What?"

"Well, Haydn's more of a poacher turned gamekeeper these days. People pay him to break in and he helps them improve their security system. He's very good at it."

"So Geoffrey's an aide at Starfleet Command, Haydn's a burglar, Cadfael works in decryption at Memory Alpha, Emlyn is a cellist, Tegan is a cadet at the Academy and Nye and Bronny are still at still in high school." Reg listed.

"Yay. You got it right."

"And your Mom, sorry Mum." he pronounced carefully, "Is an artist and your Dad is not at all scary and the Judge Advocate General," he exhaled, "and your biological mother is apparently a murdering whore who must look just like you."

"That, pretty much sums it up yes." Taryn replied.

"What I don't understand is how she killed him?"

"Pheromone shock is a condition young male Klingons get by exposure to Orion women. Klingons are even more susceptible than humans and young males can get a rush of hormones that can be fatal." Taryn explained.

"You know," The Doctor said from nearby. "I was thinking, your cases are both unique and it might be interesting to start a longitudinal study of the physical affects you have on each other. Even Dr Mizan hasn't looked at the long term effects of interspecies mating with a second generation hybrid."

Reg dropped his face onto Taryn's shoulder. "He's going to publish a paper isn't he?"

"Yes, and it will no doubt contain details we'd rather not be made public," She snorted, "I wonder if he'll include that I tried to tell you to go fuck yourself while you were restrained."

"So that's what you tried to say." Reg replied. "Just as well I didn't hear you, being compelled to do that that would've really chafed."

"Yeah, not my finest hour." she said sadly. She felt stressed, she felt tense and claustrophobic on this ship with its dark metalwork.

"Are you okay?" he asked earnestly.

"I don't like being here. I saw how they looked at me when they escorted me to the brig and I was bound and gagged, hardly a threat. Klingons learn to distrust green women at mother's knee."

Reg took his hand from her waist and cupped her cheek. "We'll soon be on the Enterprise." he assured her and pulled her face into his chest.

"I hope so, because after two bouts of hyperthermia you're smelling less than fragrant," she smiled, "and if this shithole is the sickbay I dread to think what the showers are like."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Dr Crusher sighed. She got the feeling this wasn't going to be the most straight-forward of patient handovers, given who was involved. "Right, so she had minor facial injuries treated by a medic, was sexually assaulted, suffered minor lacerations to her entire body, was concussed and had an orbital fracture. She then suffered a self-induced hedroxin overdose resulting in cardiac arrest, was declared dead for nearly ten minutes, was given CPR for over an hour during which she obtained a fractured rib and a tension pneumothorax and went into neural shock. She was later placed on cardio pulmonary support and recovered fully. Had a fall while under the influence of synthehol, was exposed to antimatter radiation and decompression and has radiation poisoning. Fractured her humerus, clavicle and scapula and punctured her subclavian artery." Dr Crusher arched a brow, "I think I'll let you explain all this to her father Doctor. Oh and muscle spasms due to upper arm restraint on the Bortas. Mustn't leave that one out." She picked up another pad. "So we have an emetic reaction to anaesthezine, he always was a honker. A bruised knuckle, cracked molar, fractured mandible, three fractured ribs, a tension pneumothorax," she looked at The Doctor, "His and Hers, how sweet. Then we have an energy discharge injury followed by cardiac arrest, ventricular fibrillation, he was defibrillated five times, placed in stasis and underwent thirty-five hours of cellular regenerative therapy to his heart, thoracic region and left arm. He then had to be treated for tachycardia following the post-coital transdermal effects of Orion pheromones," she looked up at The Doctor. "I'm surprised he found the time or the energy. He was also decompressed and irradiated and is suffering from radiation poisoning and has had two episodes of hyperthermia." She dropped the padd on the table, "Is this the same Reg Barclay? Because the man I know would either be catatonic or hyperventilating his way towards the mother of all anxiety attacks after all this. Certainly not sitting there smiling and laughing."

"That's love for you." The Doctor replied with a smile. "There were also some minor injuries to everyone else, I set Ootani's nose, and Data was impaled through the chest with a great-sword. It's all on here." he stated, handing her another padd which she accepted and began flicking through.

"Doctor, what the hell was going on aboard that ship?"

"I was too busy leaping from crisis to crisis to keep track if I'm honest." The Doctor admitted. "But Ootani's nose was no mystery, it bruised Barclay's knuckle. Oh there was something else, you may need to contact Deanna Troi. Let me show you." He left the office walking slowly so she could keep up. "Follow my lead." he whispered. He walked up to the biobed were Reg was lying propped up with pillows and Taryn was perched on the edge talking to him, they were both in gowns following a regrettable incident. This time Taryn was the one who threw up and managed to projectile vomit over herself, Reg, The Doctor, the Biobed, an instrument tray and the wall and floor. Beverly was impressed she had managed to cover such a wide area without her head spinning around. She had sent Alyssa and Barton, the medical technician on a break after they'd cleaned up the mess, after all The Doctor was there with her if any kind of emergency happened.

"Taryn, I just need to look at your eye again." The Doctor asked.

"Of course." she replied and turned for him to hold a device to her eye and look through it.

"Yes, that's what I suspected." The Doctor commented and turned to Dr Crusher, "This is the orbit she fractured, what's your opinion?" He handed her the device.

"Wha… Is there a problem?" Reg asked, a worried expression on his face. "Is it her intraocular pressure? Her retina? Did she damage the cornea?"

"I see what you mean, just below the…" Dr Crusher commented.

"Exactly." The Doctor said.

"Oh God is it Tellarite Ocular Syndrome? Or Bolian Iris Rot? Have you caught it in time? Has it reached her optic nerve?" He paled, "It's in her brain isn't it? She's going to die isn't she?" He began to hyperventilate.

"She has lovely eyes Reg, just like her father's. She's absolutely fine." Dr Crusher reassured him. "You on the other hand will need some counselling or you're going to drive this poor woman round the bend every time she sneezes. Have you been continuing with therapy as Deanna suggested?"

"Not… as such." he replied nervously avoiding eye contact. "I went once, I don't like the counsellor at Daystrom. I didn't tell Deanna, I, well, it's not fair of me to keep contacting her all the time."

"She wouldn't write to you if she felt that way Reg." Dr Crusher reassured him.

"I know but…" he stopped and forced a smile and fidgeted with his hands.

"Did you see Thorpe?" Taryn asked, "He used to be at the Annex. I couldn't stick him either."

"You were in therapy?" Reg asked, "You seem so well adjusted."

"Yes, because of the therapy." she told him. "My biological mother effectively aborted us. I have abandonment issues, trust issues and…" she stopped herself. "I still call my old therapist when I need to and luckily I have friends and family I can confide in."

"There are other therapists in Startfleet and beyond that I can refer you to. But in the meantime, I'm not allowed to poach Dr Thorpe's clientele officially, but my door is always open Reg." The Doctor told him, "Whether you want to talk as a friend or in a more therapeutic capacity is entirely up to you."

"I… Thank you Doctor." Reg replied.

"I think we've both been scaring the crap out of each other over the last few days and that stress is manifesting itself as overt and neurotic concern for my well-being. I know I feel worried about you too." Taryn told him.

"You do?" Reg asked.

"Of course, I can't stop thinking that I ran out of time and didn't get to you in the chamber, and then I nearly didn't catch you. I'm not a trapeze artist you know." she told him.

"I can't stop thinking about your blood evaporating in the sonic shower, I was drenched to the skin in your blood, there was just so much of it." He gazed at her.

The Doctors stepped aside and headed back to the office.

"I think he'll be okay." Dr Crusher said, "They make a sweet couple and they don't seem to have a problem voicing their fears and anxieties to each other."

"Considering he spent a year trying to get up enough courage to talk to her they're certainly making up for lost time. It helps that she has an advanced degree in psychosocial science although she only practices with synthetic life-forms."

"They'll probably end up counselling each other." Dr Crusher smirked.

The Doctor looked back into the sickbay and shook his head.

"Computer, activate privacy field on Biobed 3." At Dr Crushers puzzled expression he added. "They've started 'counselling' each other rather passionately."

"Well, at least I'll get to witness the transdermal effects of Orion pheromones." Dr Crusher rolled her eyes.

"I knew he'd never keep it in his pants. I'm surprised they lasted this long." The Doctor muttered. "When was your last check-up?"

"Not long maybe a week ago." she replied.

"At least two weeks then." The Doctor said. "Doctors make the worst patients and they always lie." He picked up his tricorder. "Let's have a look, shall we?"

Beverly knew there was no point in arguing, and at least she trusted The Doctor more than the obstetrician at Utopia Planitia, he was a believer in foetal transports and pushed them all the time. God forbid he should actually get his hands dirty and deliver a baby the natural way. She had been avoiding her appointments but Alyssa had been keeping an eye on her and they had agreed she would be handling the delivery and they always had the EMH if something went awry. If Jean-Luc didn't like it he could shove it.

...

Data was angry, extremely angry. Despite all of the assurances from Captain Picard and two Admirals, Starfleet were going to do absolutely nothing. After all, it only involved artificial life-forms so what did it matter? He stood up and left the conference room, his chair was still spinning when the door closed behind him. This ship had once been his home, Starfleet had once been his home and he felt like a stranger. Everything had changed in the year he had been, what? Dead? Asleep like some cybernetic Rip Van Winkle?

He knew Starfleet was fallible, history had proved it. The Baku incident had merely been one of many fiascos but they had always come down on the side of life when it counted. Until now.

"Data wait." Geordi called after him.

"What for?" he asked as he entered the turbolift and it closed. "Sickbay." he spoke between gritted teeth. He clenched and unclenched his fists as the turbolift opened and stalked into sickbay.

"Data," Dr Crusher smiled at him as he arrived then her face changed, "What's wrong?"

"I am… You are huge." he said staring at her belly.

"Well, thank you Data, you look very well too." She laughed, hugging him and kissing his cheek.

Another thing that had changed, good news of course, wonderful news but how and why did he ever think he could simply fit back in? He knew he'd have to apply to reinstate his commission of course, but there was no guarantee he'd end up on the Enterprise or even that they would want him back. They must have replaced his position by now.

"Data?" Dr Crusher asked.

"I need to speak with The Doctor and Taryn." he said, a mixture of sadness and confusion on his face. He pulled away from her, "I am sorry." he raised his hands, "I am so sorry." He stepped into the bay and saw Taryn sitting on one of the Biobeds with Barclay's head on her shoulder, he appeared to be eating anchovies and really relishing every bite. Odd, as Data was under the impression he hated them. The Doctor was at the bedside. "I am leaving." he blurted, "I am going to take the Chekov and go to Galor IV and stop what is happening."

"What?" Taryn asked. "Data, slow down, remember we aren't in your head with you and tell us what's happened?"

"They are going to do nothing." he told her "Admiral Paris has been unable to get an official sanction for an investigation of any kind. Your father has contacted the Federation Council and they have refused as well." He swiped at a device on an articulated arm and it swung around and smashed against the wall. "I…" he tried to calm the hitching in his breath.

"So you're planning a one-man raid on a high-security military installation?" The Doctor asked calmly.

"Data," she stopped and turned to Barclay, "I'll be right back." she said and walked to Dr Crusher's office hauling Data by the arm. "I can't talk properly in front of Reg right now but are you out of your frigging mind?" she asked him. "You aren't thinking rationally. If you go there alone you won't get through the front door before they'll catch you, take you to pieces and turn you into…" She rubbed her face with her hand. "Give me time to transmit my resignation and…"

"No. you are not coming with me." He shook his head.

"Let me finish. I'll go public with what I know." she told him.

"The penalties are too severe. I cannot allow you to do that."

"I can't and won't let you go on a suicide mission." she warned him. "And as a civilian I'd get a civilian trial and they tend to go easier on whistle-blowers."

"That…" he stopped. He knew the penalties for what she was suggesting, she could be nearly fifty by the time she was released.

"The other option is for us all to sit down and come up with a plan. You aren't a one man army and you don't have to be, you have friends." Taryn smiled.

"She's right Data." Dr Crusher smiled. Data turned to her.

"I am sorry I was rude. I… I am not coping with my emotions very well." he said sadly. "So much has changed and I am not sure of where I belong anymore."

"If you want my professional opinion you are coping remarkably well considering you're dealing with all new emotion circuitry and have experienced nothing but drama from the moment I activated you. You need time. Time to adjust to your new body and time to adjust to the fact life went on without you for a year." Taryn told him.

"In many ways it didn't go on without you." Dr Crusher told him. "Being stuck in spacedock isn't the only reason we don't have an official First Officer, we've had a string of people managing Ops that haven't worked out and our new counsellor resigned after two weeks saying she was overworked. Jean-Luc and I got together after years of dancing around the issue after your memorial service. Even this baby was conceived while we were comforting each other after we shipped B-4 to Daystrom." Dr Crusher explained. "Whatever you decide we will all support, but you will always be welcome on this ship." She reached out and hugged him. "Also we hope to bribe you to stay by making you a Godfather."

"I," he smiled, and felt the galvanic response in his cheeks increase. He doubted it would show outwardly but he was blushing. "I would be honoured."

"Promise me you won't do anything until we've had time to discuss it?" Taryn asked.

The door opened to admit Captain Picard. "Commander Prior, we haven't been introduced, but I am Jean-Luc Picard. I believe we owe you a debt of gratitude for returning Mr Data to us."

"It was a team effort sir." she replied, taking his offered hand.

"Data, we have discussed the situation and have set course for Galor IV. If Starfleet will not act then we certainly shall." He turned to Taryn. "As soon as the good doctors release you Commander, I will require a full briefing on everything you know about the complex, what and who is held there and any security measures you are aware of in addition to exactly what you have witnessed there."

"I already have a report prepared sir." she replied. "I'll file it immediately."

"We won't need to keep her here long." Dr Crusher stated. "No more than an hour or so. She's responding well to the treatment for radiation poisoning."

"And Mr Barclay?" Picard asked.

"He's having a rougher time with it, I'd like to keep him here overnight." Crusher explained. "Just as a precaution."

Picard nodded, "Perhaps while we have The Doctor here you should avail yourself of his services and have a check-up?" he suggested.

"Already taken care of Captain," The Doctor said brightly, "all is well with mother and child."

"Grand." Picard said smiling proudly. "If you'll join me Mr Data."

"Yes sir." Data replied and followed him into the corridor. "Captain, I would like to apologise for my behaviour…"

"No need Number One."

"But I… Sir?" Data frowned

"Admiral Paris may have failed in getting an official sanction for our investigation, but had you remained seated you would have found out he pushed through your reinstatement." Picard replied curtly. "I expect you on the Bridge in thirty minutes, in uniform. You know where to find the First Officer's quarters?"

"Yes sir, but…" Data began as the Captain strode away.

"Oh and Number One," the Captain turned and reached for his collar. "You'll be needing this." he handed him a rank insignia. "Congratulations on your promotion Commander." Picard shook his hand.

"Thank you sir." he replied, looking and feeling stunned. Perhaps he did still have a home after all? At least until they all got thrown out for staging yet another insurrection.

…

Taryn signed to The Doctor.

 _"_ _No, I'm not making him eat any more anchovies or Gagh or anything else he doesn't like."_

"But it's perfectly safe and I'd like to see how long your pheromones last trans-dermally." The Doctor told her. "No-one has ever measured the trans-dermal effects of Orion pheromones, not even Dr Mizan."

 _"_ _I said no!"_

"What are you saying? I don't understand." Barclay asked. "What do you want me to do?" He took her hand and kissed her palm and wrist. "I'll do anything. Anything you want." He tilted his head to kiss her on the lips. But she had already told him not to and he stopped, gazing at her longingly. This was all horribly wrong. Edara and Tira may crave this level of control over a man but she certainly didn't. She had to take equal responsibility for them getting carried away in sickbay of all places but from their previous 'experiment' in her quarters on the Bastion which continued to round two in the shower she believed if she was careful with what she said he would basically be himself. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Doctor had agreed to let her take a shower, but she was told Reg simply sat there, staring at the door until she emerged. He had become utterly dependent on her, incapable of making a decision or acting on any motivation beyond the scope of his autonomic nervous system. In fact, she got the feeling if he could he'd only be breathing at her command. His reaction to her pheromones was getting stronger with each exposure, the shower on the Bastion had simply decontaminated him faster.

"I'm sorry." Barclay apologised guiltily as a wet patch spread over his gown. He'd sat there and peed himself because she didn't tell him he should go and use the toilet and he didn't ask.

"You go and have a shower and then I want you to get some sleep." she told him. The Doctor rolled his eyes and threw his head back in frustration. "I need to go and report to the Bridge, but I'll come back and see you as soon as I can." she promised and kissed him.

"You'll come back soon." he said, "I need a shower and I'm tired." he confirmed and got down from the bed and walked towards the shower.

"Don't start." Taryn warned, "I know it's important to study this phenomenon but I can't do this to him. He just sat there and wet himself Doctor."

"Edara would be very proud." The Doctor told her.

"That's not much consolation, Grandma Miffy would be utterly ashamed, as would Mum and T'Pandra…"

"Have you told him yet?"

"What? That Edara has been grooming me for the role of Tahedri since I was born and when I refused she's been fixated on my becoming the Tabadi of another family to create an alliance? No I haven't told him that, mainly because I have absolutely no intention of being part of her plan and also because it's not an easy thing to drop into conversation and we've not exactly had a lot of time alone together." She sighed, "It isn't my fault her only daughter is a sociopath and her sons have only fathered boys so far. I have my own life. I'm entitled to my own life and forty-eight weeks of the year I'm human, not Orion."

"If you aren't going to become a matriarch of a caju, why not tell him?" The Doctor asked.

"Because he still doesn't completely trust my motives for being with him and I don't want him to feel I'm using him as an excuse to wriggle out of an arranged marriage."

"He wouldn't think that." The Doctor told her.

"Wouldn't he? After what Leosa did to him?" she asked. "Played the attentive girlfriend, stole from him and almost destroyed his career." She ran her hands through her hair and tied it back in a knot at the back of her head. "I have to go, you might want to get him to leave the shower while he still has skin left." she said and headed for the door.

…

When Taryn entered the conference room she didn't know who to hug first, her father, her brother or the new first officer of the Enterprise, but with all the other officers in the room she restricted herself to curt nods of greeting.

"Thank you for joining us Commander, and thank you for your report. It's…" Picard started.

"It's horrific to say the least." Janeway continued. "You should have come forward sooner."

"I'm aware of that Admiral, but I doubted I would be believed and I felt, I hoped, that by my remaining there I was able to make a difference for some of them. But as time passed and things became worse I realised it was futile."

"Partial dispersal? Adding sensory subroutines to holograms and then dismembering them? Not to mention the radiation experiments on the nanites. How could they justify this in the name of science?" The Doctor asked.

"Surprisingly easily." Taryn replied. "The dispersal experiments were to see if a photonic life-form could survive various levels of dispersal. Could a partial matrix be salvaged? The answer was obviously no to anyone who knows the first thing about holography and the net effect was like watching someone hit by a Varon-T Disruptor but that didn't stop Commander Young's experiments. He even began creating sentient holograms especially for the process."

"How many?" B'Elanna asked.

"Five hundred were killed. Young believed fewer wouldn't yield significant results statistically." Taryn replied. "I only witnessed one personally. They wanted me to comment on the psychological effects on the hologram. She died screaming and terrified, you didn't need a Master's Degree to come to that conclusion. I lodged an official complaint but it was ignored."

"And the sensory experiments?" Zimmerman asked.

"They wanted to see if giving a hologram organic sensation and capable of appearing and feeling human if they were injured would make them better infiltrators. Of course they could never get them to work independently without holo-emitters anyway. Lieutenant Masters was lead on the project.

"Trey Masters? He worked with me." Zimmerman frowned. "I can't believe he'd do something so despicable."

"I was surprised myself." Taryn said sadly, her relationship with Trey was brief culminating in betrayal with Debbie Radley, but she had been smitten with him up to that point and mortified when she found out what he was working on.

"Barclay will be horrified, I mean they got on really well, they're both Dragon's fans." Zimmerman stated.

"Really." Taryn commented coldly, feeling all the blood drain from her face. To think she thought the conversation about her training on Barin Prime and Edara's wedding plans would be the difficult conversation. She cast her eyes over to The Doctor who was trying not to laugh and spotted Data and Geordi exchanging arched brows, they knew her far too well. Well, it looked like that little chat was one she couldn't put off considering they were en route to where Trey was stationed.

"I have been analysing the security details you have provided." Tuvok intoned.

"I know more about the measures taken to restrain the various life-forms than I do about the overall security. But I included what little I know."

"You know quite a bit Shrimp," Geoffrey smiled. "I mean Commander." he corrected. "It's not going to be an easy place to get into. One door in and out, genetic, biosignature and retinal scans. Transporter scattering fields, a security field for inbound shuttles.

"I concur." Tuvok agreed.

"Perhaps we need a Trojan Horse." Data suggested, "Me."

"That would be a risky gambit Commander Data." Janeway warned, "It could blow up in our faces."

"Not if he wasn't alone." Taryn commented. "I'm beginning to suspect Haftel sent me to work on B-4 so I would help find Data's matrix for them. If they want to duplicate it they will need someone who knows how."

"Mr La Forge? Captain Maddox?" Picard turned to them.

"They can't convince Haftel they're working for him. Even if he's heard from the crew of the Bastion the only ones who know I was working to liberate the ship were Eden and Young, and they're dead. It has to be me." Taryn explained.

"I don't like it but she's right." Iestyn stated. "But how will you explain the destruction of the Odyssey?"

She pointed to Data, "He did it, I was just biding my time to get him back to the Annex as per the overall mission objective. I was so scared they'd find me out and shove me out of an airlock." she sniffed, "I mean, they took over the ship, I had no choice but to play along. Who knows what they were capable of?" she looked around the table and could see her performance was convincing. "And that's without using pheromones, which I will if I have to." She raised her hand to silence The Doctor, "Within normal limits of course."

"I don't know if the two if you would be enough." Janeway commented, "They wanted eight researchers and an android. We may have to sweeten the deal a little more."

"My mobile emitter?" The Doctor suggested. "I could upload to the Enterprise computer."

"Barclay." Seven of Nine suggested, "One emitter is worthless if they cannot replicate it. Everyone else's research is near completion. He has yet to build the prototype."

"No." Taryn snapped, "Out of the question."

"Is that your professional opinion," Data asked, "or your personal one?"

"Both." Taryn replied. "Do you really think he's suited to this kind of mission?"

"Before I watched him shove a live optical cable into a power coupling and fool the Bastion's crew into thinking they had an overloading torpedo in the bank I'd have agreed with you." Geordi said. "But now?"

"He did what?" B'Elanna asked incredulously. "And lived to talk about it?"

"Only just." The Doctor replied. "He was remarkably calm when we faced all those demons in the cargo bay. He kept his mind on the job, despite the distractions." he gave Taryn a pointed look.

"I wouldn't feel comfortable ordering anyone to go on a mission of this sort, but I don't see the harm in speaking to him about it." Janeway commented.

Taryn rubbed her temples. Intellectually she could see the logic of their suggestion but on every other level she was against it and not because he may meet up and compare notes with Trey. She looked up and considered the wider situation, the angles, the options, then smiled wolfishly.

"Taryn?" Iestyn eyed her carefully, "I know that look." the Admiral smiled. "You've just thought of something."

"Yes, but unfortunately for it to work we will need to take along a holography expert, and I don't expect Dr Z would like to volunteer?" she asked hopefully but knowing the answer.

"Not on your life… Shrimp." Dr Zimmerman replied.

The red alert klaxon sounded suddenly followed by the ship jolting suddenly.

…

Barclay was feeling better in some ways but not in others. He could think for himself again and although he was mortified that he'd peed himself that was the least of his worries. He may not have had all his faculties for the last couple of hours but he wasn't deaf. He heard everything she discussed with The Doctor before she left sickbay. Yes it hurt his feelings but only because she was right. He didn't trust her motives. He was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and yes, it was his experience with Leosa that was to blame. He hated the fact that she felt there were things she couldn't share with him because he would react badly. He hated that he was damaged goods.

Red alert sounded and he felt the impact on the shields. Dr Crusher emerged from her office and clutched the doorframe as the ship shook.

"Alyssa, there's a medical emergency in Main Engineering can you take Barton and handle it please? The Doctor is busy on the bridge."

"Shouldn't Barton stay here if we have a patient?" Nurse Ogawa asked.

"I'll be fine with Reg, he's only here as a precaution." Beverly waved her off then headed over to him. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Who's injured on the bridge?" he asked, wondering if it was Taryn.

"An ensign Admiral Janeway brought aboard. Don't worry." Beverly said, "I'm sure she'll be fine." the ship jolted again and she doubled over. "Oooh!"

"Wh..what? Are you okay?" Barclay asked.

"I'm fine, it's just a twinge…..OOOH!" She gasped and looked up at him, "My water just broke."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Taryn was sat at the Ops station, Data had put her there and moved Seven of Nine to the Science station, a change the blonde woman seemed pleased about as her expertise was astrometrics rather than ships operations. They were under attack from the Bozeman.

"Bateson, for God's sake let's discuss this like reasonable people." Picard argued.

"I have very clear orders. I'm to take any survivors from the Bastion to Galor IV. It isn't open for discussion." Morgan Bateson stated. "If you do not release them I have orders to take them by force."

"Who gave you those orders?" Janeway demanded.

"I'm not at liberty to say, Admiral."

"I have six ships on an inbound vector." Taryn reported, "Orion Interceptors." she looked up and blinked.

"They are hailing us." Tuvok reported from Tactical.

"On screen." Picard ordered. "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Star..."

A muscular green male appeared on screen and fixed Picard with ice blue eyes.

"I am Nareev of the Caju Barin, return our kin." The channel closed immediately.

The phalanx of Orion ships raised shields, armed weapons, assumed an attack posture, surrounded the Federation ships and opened fire.

…

Reg was screaming and Dr Crusher was supplying the harmony. He frantically tried to peel her fingers from his hand as she was gripping it like a vice and twisting it back in a move he was fairly certain was Mok'bara, especially as she was forcing him to his knees. She began to release it as her contraction faded and panted, her face awash with sweat. He'd just managed to get her to the birthing chair between contractions. He was no expert, he'd even fainted during the holographic birth simulation at the Academy first aid class but he was under the impression labour took a while. In fact his mother still mentioned thirty-three hours every year on his birthday, but these contractions seemed awfully close together for so early on.

"Did you call the Captain? Alyssa? The Doctor?" she asked desperately.

"Internal coms are down." Barclay replied and realised she was squeezing his hand again. The ship continued to rock under the bombardment against the shields.

"Oh God! Computer, activate EMH!" she screeched.

"Hi there," the hologram winked at her, "I'm Doctor Mark Quin, tell me what you need?" he gave her a charming smile.

"What the fuck do you think I need?" she screamed as Reg began to think he was going to lose fingers.

"Ah, the wondrous miracle of child birth." the EMH Mark-V grinned, "Let's have a look shall we." he sauntered towards the business end of the birthing chair. "We're fully dilated. Won't be long now." the hologram winked at her, oblivious of her obvious distress and the pummelling the ship was taking.

"No shit!" Beverly yelled. Her eyes widened as the EMH blinked out of existence. "What happened, where did he go?" she asked Barclay desperately.

The room went dark suddenly, then the emergency lighting came on seconds later.

"The holo-emitters went offline and we just switched to emergency power." he replied.

"Can you fix it? Can you get the EMH back?" she asked through gritted teeth holding the front of his hospital gown with one hand.

"I don't know, I can try. Do you have any tools here?" he asked desperately.

"Do I look like I have any fucking tools!" she squawked, "This was not my birth plan. Oh GOD!" she screamed and tightened her grip on the gown, starting to strangle him and simultaneously trying to dislocate his wrist. "Get down there and see if I'm crowning." she ordered as the contraction ended. "You're going to have to deliver this baby."

"What? No! I…I…I can't. I…I…can't look at your foo-foo."

She grabbed the front of his gown with both hands and he whimpered. She also had hold of some chest hair and skin at the same time.

"Barclay," she hissed, "you can and will look at my foo-foo or I will rip off your genitals and send them to Taryn in a gift box."

He looked into her eyes, he believed her.

"I…I…I'll look. I'll look." he held up his hands in surrender. Relieved that she relaxed her grip on his chest, he stepped around, lifted her dress and blanched.

"Don't you dare faint!" she ordered as another contraction started, "Can you see the baby's scalp?"

"Not exactly," he replied nervously with a disturbed expression on his face, "I can see Captain Picard's face." he said with alarm, "Do I support the head or something?"

"Yes!" she screamed as she bore down, unable to stop herself.

"Wow." Barclay smiled and looked up at her, holding a squalling, yucky infant in his hands against his chest. "What do I do now?"

Beverly reached out for the baby and took it into her arms, joyful tears streaming down her face.

"It's a boy." she smiled, "Pass me that instrument tray so I can cut the cord." he did as instructed, "Thank you Reg, you were wonderful." she said as he passed her a towel to wrap her newborn in and she began to clean him up. "He really does look like Jean-Luc doesn't he?" She smiled at Barclay, "Perhaps it's the hair."

"We have minor casualties coming this way from all…" The Doctor froze.

"It's a boy," Dr Crusher beamed at him, "Reg delivered him."

"So I see," The Doctor smiled and scanned mother and child. "He has a fine pair of lungs." he commented as the child wailed. "Does he have a name yet?"

Barclay stood there smiling, he had no idea what exactly he was covered in but it wasn't pleasant and looked dark olive green. He suspected it was poop and he really didn't care. All he knew was he wanted to get started on that family right away.

…

"My Tuvok, reopen a channel to that ship." Picard ordered as he was buffeted in his seat.

"They are ignoring our hails, Captain." Tuvok reported. "Shields are failing."

"Transfer all available power to shields." Picard ordered.

"The warp drive is offline." Taryn reported as the lights went out. "We've lost main power, switching to emergency backup." the lights returned at a lower level.

"Minor casualties reported all over the ship." Data reported.

"Internal communications just went down." Taryn stated.

 _"What the hell is going on?"_ Bateson asked, the channel still open on audio, _"Kin? Who are they talking about? Aren't Orion's supposed to be neutral?"_

"There is more going on here than you are aware of Bateson. Now clear the damn channel." Picard shouted. "Will he listen to you Ms Prior?"

"He doesn't appear to be thinking straight but I'll try." she opened a channel " _Nareev you sexual partner of a deceased wing-slug, are you trying to rescue me or kill me?"_ she spoke in Orion. From the first Officers seat Data snorted, apparently the only one on the Bridge who understood idiomatic Low Orion.

 _"Cousin, are you unharmed?"_ Nareev asked, appearing on the viewscreen. _"We were told you were taken from Earth beaten and bleeding."_

 _"I'm fine. I'm not a prisoner. Stand down. Cease firing on both ships."_ she instructed. All went quiet.

"The Tahedri of the Caju Barin has asked permission to beam aboard to speak with her grandchild." Tuvok intoned. "As a Vulcan and a security officer I can ensure she does not leave the transporter room sir."

"Make it so." Picard nodded as the lights returned to normal.

 _"Engineering to Bridge, we've managed to restore power and internal communications. Warp drive should be back up within four hours."_ Geordi explained.

"Thank you Mr La Forge." Picard replied.

 _"Doctor to Captain Picard, please report to sickbay at your earliest convenience."_ The sound in the background was unmistakeable, a baby was crying.

"Number One, you have the Bridge." Picard whispered and headed for the turbolift.

…

"I can't believe I missed it." Picard smiled down at his newborn son in his arms.

"It happened really fast." Beverly told him, "I didn't exactly have a long labour with Wesley but I wasn't expecting things to move that quickly. Barclay only just caught the little guy." she stroked her infant's cheek.

"He looks very serious doesn't he?" the Captain commented.

"He looks like you." she replied.

"Do you think so?" he mused. "I was thinking he looks like my mother."

"We never did decide on a name." Beverly quirked her lip. "How about Yves, after your mother Yvette."

"Yves Picard." the Captain smiled, "I like it. Although I was hoping to use my nephew's name if it was a boy."

"Yves Rene Picard it is then." Beverly smiled.

"We've forgotten someone." Picard reminded her.

"No. Data's the Godfather now he's back, we aren't naming our son after him too."

"I didn't mean him." He arched a brow at his wife.

…

"Seriously?" Reg asked incredulously, "You don't have to do that sir, I mean Reginald is a horrible name, even as a middle name. I've lived with it, I should know." He was back in uniform, the gown was making him feel a little, exposed.

"Actually we were thinking Barclay, it rings better with his other names. Beverly explained. Yves Rene Barclay Picard."

"That's…thank you. That's a real honour although, I didn't exactly do much." he smiled at the tiny boy in her arms. "You did the hard part."

"You were there for my wife when I couldn't be and I will always be grateful for that Mr Barclay." Captain Picard shook his hand.

"I couldn't have done it without you Reg." Beverly smiled, "Here." she said passing him the baby. "Make sure you support his head. He's not so disgusting now."

"You weren't disgusting before." Reg smiled at the baby in his arms, "What came out of you and down my shirt front wasn't nice though. No, I bet you were glad to get rid of that." He realised he was using the same tone he uses with cats, but Yves didn't seem to mind.

"You're a natural." Beverly smiled. "Would you like one of your own?"

"We both would but The Doctor says it's not going to be straightforward for us." he smiled as the infant gripped his finger. "You've got a grip like your Mommy young man." he told him. "And it's a bit early to add another person to the relationship. But…"

"I didn't realise things were so serious between you." the Captain commented.

"She's agreed to move in, if she doesn't end up in the stockade." Reg said, passing the boy to his father. "Of course, once her family meet me they'll probably stage an intervention." He was only partly joking. He was dreading meeting her father who he knew was on board.

"Reg, get out of here. Just come back for your hyronalin shots at the same time as Taryn." Dr Crusher told him. "And come back if you get any more symptoms." she smiled.

Reg assumed Taryn was still busy as she hadn't come to find him, and as far as he could tell neither of them had been assigned quarters. He didn't want to ask, he'd like them to share quarters but he didn't want to presume and there was the current embargo on her sleeping in his presence to contend with. He went to Engineering to see if he could help but was told by Geordi and B'Elanna to go away and relax as they had everything under control. He got the feeling there was something they weren't telling him, but then he often got a little paranoid, it was nothing new. Feeling at a loose end and homeless, he headed to the bar to find Dan standing behind it.

"New career?" he asked the young cyberneticist.

"They have no civilian staff on board so I'm making myself useful. What can I get you? A Slippery Nipple, a Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall and a Screaming Orgasm are my specialties." he winked at him.

"Can I just get some milk?" Barclay asked. He may be naïve but he realised it was a joke about cocktails and really hoped Dan wasn't making a pass at him. Regardless he wasn't the least bit interested in tasting Dan's slippery nipple and he could keep his orgasms to himself. Taryn was right, Dan really would flirt with anyone.

"You want milk?" the stand-in barman asked looking a little disappointed. Reg hoped this was because he couldn't show off his skills with a swizzle stick and he didn't mean the one between his legs.

"Warm please."

"We've been looking for you Mr Barclay." the voice was menacing and he realised he was flanked by two men.

"We need to have a discussion." the younger man said icily, his voice filled with overtones of threat.

"Word has it you've been ploughing my daughter's furrow." The older man intoned. Reg froze, he didn't expect to be welcomed with open arms by her family but he had the distinct feeling he was about to get the crap beaten out of him.

"Doing the horizontal mambo." Geoffrey added.

"Knocking boots." Iestyn intoned.

"Indulging in the sweet agony of coitus."

"The dance of a thousand deaths." Iestyn glared at him.

"Poking my sister's hole."

The older man snorted and burst out laughing at his sons comment. "Is that the best you could come up with?" He slapped Barclay on the back, "I'm sorry son, we're only joking. Couldn't resist it." Iestyn laughed and extended his hand to Reg, "I'm Taryn's father, Iestyn. This is Geoff."

Reg started breathing again, the flashback to high school ended abruptly and he nervously shook the Admiral's hand.

"Taz asked us to find you and keep you out of the way while she's talking to Cruella."

"Cruella?" Reg asked taking a sip of milk.

"Her grandmother, Edara is on board. She explained about your current sensitivity and doesn't want you anywhere near her. You're lucky, I wish I had an excuse. Synthale please?" Iestyn asked Dan.

"Make that two." Geoffrey added.

"She's that bad?" Reg asked.

"As manipulative evil bitches go she's alright in small doses I suppose." The Admiral told him. "What's Taryn told you about her?"

"Nothing, but I overheard that she p…plans to m…marry her off." Barclay said sadly.

"Don't worry it won't happen," Geoff told him, "and not just because she's besotted with you."

"She is?" Reg asked as they headed to a table and sat down.

"She wouldn't be moving in with you if she wasn't." Iestyn told him.

"She t…told you about that?" Barclay asked, "And you're okay with it?"

"Are you in love with her?" Iestyn asked, "Planning to look after her, not treat her like shit or abuse her in anyway?"

"I adore her, I'd never do anything to hurt her." Barclay declared.

"Then I'm okay with it." the older man responded, phlegmatically. "Besides I learned when she was still sucking her thumb and holding a blanket…"

"This time last week then." Geoff joked.

"…that it's best not to get between her and something she really wants," He shot a playful chiding glance at his son, "and it's obvious she wants to be with you."

"She's positively glowing." Geoff said. "I've never seen her so happy."

"And to be frank you're a step up from some of the spotty herberts she's dated." Iestyn told him.

"Like that bastard at the Annex, what was his name again, Tod, Troy?" Geoff asked.

"Trey Masters, I'd love to shake him warmly by the throat." realisation spread over his face as the Admiral remembered what Zimmerman had said. "Oh God alive, she's going to kill me." He covered his face with his hand.

"Trey Masters? She dated Trey Masters?" Barclay asked. "Is he the one who…"

"The girl in the storage locker." Iestyn nodded. "Playing the pink oboe."

Reg was shocked. He'd heard a rumour that Trey had ended up at the Annex but it had never occurred to him that they would have met much less… Oh God, Trey had planted his flag first, he must have done. He'd hump anything with a pulse and vaguely feminine genitalia. He was unsure why it bothered him, he was under no illusions that she'd lived like a nun before they met but Masters? He wasn't a friend by any means, they'd watched a couple of games together but Trey wanted what he called a 'wing man' to go out picking up women with. Reg suspected he'd be more of a 'fall guy' if he joined him and had politely declined. He was okay to work with but he could be a bastard when it came to women. What on earth did Taryn see in Trey? How stupid was Trey to let her go?

"His loss." Reg sniffed. "Same again?" he asked the two Priors.

"Please." they both replied and Reg headed to the bar.

"Three synthales please Dan."

…

 _"So your response to my being kidnapped is to kidnap me and drag me off to Barin Prime?"_ Taryn laughed. They were arguing in Orion, not for privacy because Tuvok was present, but because her grandmother was a consummate snob and rarely spoke other languages despite being fluent in several.

 _"You have responsibilities that you shall live up to_." Edara stated. _"I didn't spend good money educating you to have it wasted on Starfleet."_

 _"Educating me?"_ Taryn responded, _"If you call sitting in that stuffy room with your sister telling me I was a quarter-breed disgrace to the Barin line day after day an education…"_

 _"There were other tutors…"_ the Tahedri argued. _"Some of the finest, shipped in from Orion I at great expense."_

 _"Do you mean the one who was constantly drunk, or the one who was senile?"_ Taryn spat. _"I'm not suitable to be a Tabadi."_

 _"Oh, is that what's worrying you?"_ her grandmother embraced her. _"Be the next Tahedri…"_

 _"No. Nareev should be your successor. He's better than you give him credit for and he would make a far better Tahedri than I ever would. I'm not Orion enough. I never have been and I can't marry the person you've lined up for me."_

 _"I know someone who can train you in the arts of love_ …"

 _"That's not what I mean."_ Taryn pulled away from the white haired, statuesque green woman. Only she would assume it was about sexual inadequacy, and her therapist wondered where she got it from. _"They deserve better than a part-time Orion and a quarter-breed."_ she looked at Edara's face and saw it wasn't going to wash. _"I've taken a life-mate already."_ Taryn admitted reluctantly.

 _"You have?"_ Edara asked. _"Why that's wonderful. Why didn't you say?"_

Taryn was expecting this reaction, Orions were devious, avaricious, power hungry and libidinous but they believed in love beyond the physical. True love that lasted eternally. All the empire building was to one end, to provide for those you love.

 _"Are they here on this ship?"_ Edara asked excitedly, _"Is it a he or a she? What species? Can I meet them?"_

 _"He's human, and he's under quarantine at the moment_ ," Well it was partly true, she was quarantining him from Edara's pheromones, _"but you'll meet him."_

 _"He's human you say_." Edara nodded, _"Well, I've seen some very pretty young human males in my time."_ Clearly trying to rationalise the fact she would have preferred another species, pretty much any other species as Taryn well knew. _"I hear they be very energetic in their late teens, during their sexual peak."_ her blue eyes sparkled.

 _"He's older than me,"_ Taryn stated and raised her eyebrows, _"a fair bit older than me."_

 _"Oh. Well, as the humans say, better be an old man's darling than a young man's slave. What's his name?"_

 _"Reg, well, Reginald Barclay."_ Taryn replied. Edara sneered in response. " _Reginald means powerful ruler."_ Taryn added hopefully.

 _"Well that's not so bad then, quite auspicious in fact."_ her countenance darkened. _"He's not short is he?"_

 _"No he's…"_ Taryn indicated his height with her hand.

 _"Well that's something to be thankful for. But saying that when first I saw your father I hoped you'd turn out tall and look at you, my sweet little flower."_ She took her favourite grandchild's face in her hands and kissed her forehead. _"If you love him then so will I. Bring him with you next time you visit."_

 _"I will, I promise."_

 _"You know, it's rather exciting getting embroiled in Federation internal politics, I should do it more often."_ she giggled.

 _"Please don't?"_ Taryn pleaded. She helped her grandmother step onto the platform by taking her hand. She was far from infirm or frail but she expected a certain deference befitting her position.

"I'm ready to transport." Edara winked sexily at Tuvok as he energised the beam.

"I apologise Mr Tuvok, my grandmother has something of… an attraction to Vulcans."

"No need to apologise Commander. I cannot fault her taste." Tuvok arched a brow. "I am setting environmental controls for this room to the maximum recycle rate and maximum scrub to remove her pheromones. Are any further measures necessary?"

"No that's fine, thirty minutes should be more than long enough." she told him and leant on the back of the console. "Mr Tuvok, may I ask you about Vulcan mating bonds?"

The Vulcan looked at her with an arched brow. "Not only do I already have a mate, but I was under the impression you were involved with Mr Barclay?"

"Oh I wasn't suggesting…" She smirked guiltily, "It's him I'm asking about…"

"Miss Prior, while I am grateful for the role he played in the return of Voyager I assure you I am not interested in a liaison with Commander Barclay." Tuvok stated.

"I'm not explaining very well, let me start from the beginning."

…

Reg hadn't had so much fun in ages, with his clothes on anyway. Dan had found some real booze behind the bar and with only the four of them there they had started an impromptu wine tasting, that didn't exclusively involve wine.

"What is this stuff?" Dan asked examining a half empty bottle of luminous green liquid.

"Aldebaran whiskey," Iestyn said, holding out his glass for a top up. "We got through four cases on my stag night."

"Which one?" Geoff asked.

"Both." Iestyn snorted with laughter.

"Do you remember that Orion Rum Taryn snagged for my stag do? Christ that was rough. It felt like it put hairs on my tongue."

"I bet Maya loved that on your wedding night." Iestyn sniggered.

"She made me shave it." Geoff giggled, "So have you seen my lovely sister on the synthehol yet Reg?"

"No I missed it." Reg replied. "I was restrained by The Doctor because she had me on a compulsive scavenger hunt." He swigged from his glass and grimaced. "He's such a spoilsport."

"I saw it." Dan giggled. "You are a lucky man Barclay."

Reg leant his elbow on the table and missed. "Did someone move the table?" he giggled and pointed to Dan trying to keep a straight face. "You'd better forget what you saw."

"Did she take her top off again?" Iestyn asked.

"Yeah but Data stopped her taking off her bra. Another spoilsport." Dan swigged his drink.

"That's my sister mate." Geoff frowned, "I don't want you talking about her norks."

"They are particularly lovely norks," Reg said, "and I'm not even sure what norks are, but they're mine so keep your eyes off them." he warned Dan as the young officer topped up the glasses again.

"Seriously though, you need to hear her sing." Dan told him. "Did you know you don't stammer when you're drunk?" Dan asked Reg.

"You don't stammer when I'm drunk either." Reg replied and took a mouthful of the green liquid exhaled sharply and banged his upper chest with his fist. "This stuff is amazing." he gasped.

"Oh God Almighty." Taryn blurted as she spotted all the empty bottles on the table as she approached it.

"There's my woman." Reg declared and pulled her onto his lap.

"Reg was just telling us about your norks." Dan giggled.

"You've got a great bloke here Shrimp." Geoff told her.

"He's a keeper." her father slurred, "I definitely approve."

"We saved him from sobriety, he was actually drinking milk when we got here." her brother sounded scandalised.

"So minutes after his early release from sickbay you got him rat-arsed." she rolled her eyes. "It's true, you can choose your friends…"

"Am I your friend?" Dan asked.

"Not at the moment." she replied curtly.

"We need to talk about this Orion you're supposed to marry, and Trey," Reg belched in her face and she grimaced, "and all the other, what was it?"

"Spotty herberts." Iestyn said and sipped his whiskey.

"Yes those, and this mission you want me to go on but don't really want me to go on, but not right now because, I'm really drunk." he informed her, struggling to focus on her face. "Oh, and I want to have your baby right away."

"Okay." Taryn replied not really knowing what to say.

"He's really broody." Dan said, knocking back his whiskey.

"I delivered a baby today." Reg told her. "I know why The Doctor is how he is now. They're adorable, even when they crap all over you."

"You delivered the baby?" Taryn asked, surprised.

"Here's to Yves Rene Barclay Picard." Iestyn toasted. "We've been wetting the baby's head."

"We won't name our kids after me though will we?" Reg asked.

"Not if you don't want to. But I was thinking they'd be Barclays." she told him, helping herself to his drink and pulling a face. "That's horrible."

"It gets better the more you drink." he told her.

"I'll take your word for it." she told him and gave him back his glass.

"What's your full name?" Dan asked. "You could always use your middle name. Daniel is my Dad's middle name." the blond slurred.

"Reginald Endicott Barclay the third."

"That's rough man." Dan told him.

"Tell them yours." Geoff prompted Taryn.

"Taryn Boudicca Prior." she rolled her eyes.

"Tazzy-Boo." Geoff laughed.

"Was that your nickname at school?" Reg smiled.

"No, her nickname at school was Yoda." Iestyn smirked.

"Yoda? Who's Yoda?" Reg asked.

"You really need to educate your bloke Taz." Geoff told her, "Before he gets turned to the Darkside."

"Thank you Darth Boozius." she sneered.

"So how's the man-eater?" Iestyn asked.

"She's got a new man, a new nose and a new chin." Taryn reported.

"You have to wonder if she's genetically the same woman she's had so much work done." Iestyn said, "What's this new man?"

"A Denobulan named Orto." Taryn replied.

"Firstly, how does that work? Orion pheromones make Denobulans sleep all the time." Geoff pointed out. "And what is her deal with names ending in 'O'? That's got to be at least a dozen of them now."

"Thank God she never met the Marx Brothers." Iestyn laughed.

"I actually got that reference." Reg sniggered, and burst out laughing, the Prior men cheered and raised their glasses.

"Congratulations," Taryn kissed his nose, "You've been assimilated into the Prior Collective."

"That's good right?" he asked. She smiled and nodded.

"We should probably go before they break out the nanoprobes. I found out where your quarters are."

"Lay on MacYoda." Reg smiled.

"That's what you want to do." Dan sang, teasing them.

"It's a Shakespeare quote, idiot." Taryn said playfully standing up.

"No, that is what I want to do." Reg said as he stood and staggered. "Are we getting shot at again?"

"No, you're trousered." Taryn told him. "I'll speak to you three later." she said icily as she struggled to get him through the door.

"Will you marry me?" he asked as they reached the door of his quarters and they both fell through it.

"Don't worry, I'll do the decent thing if I get you pregnant." she smiled and tried to get up from on top of him.

Reg didn't want to get up, only partly because the room was spinning. He was happy, genuinely happy for the first time in years, if not ever. He wrapped his arms around his woman, no way was she getting up and moving away from him, ever if he could help it. He kissed her deeply and rolled on top of her, pinning her in a wrestling hold.

"Sorry Tiger, your docking privileges are currently suspended." she advised him

"What? Why?" he asked, kissing her neck.

"Because I like you better with your brain working." she explained. "Get up."

"A working brain is over-rated," he nuzzled her ear.

"No, get off me. There will be no further away missions to the twinkle cave until we've had a chance to talk when you're sober." He rose to his hands and knees, and she wriggled out from under him. He knew she was serious, she meant it. He was grounded. "Come on, get up." she said, helping him to his feet. "You're too drunk for it anyway." she smiled.

It was true, he had to admit. The spirit was willing but the flesh had brewers droop, but it was so unfair. Wait, why was she taking off his clothes? Had she changed her mind? She still had her uniform on so he doubted it.

"Oh my." He was lying face down on the bed in his underpants and she was straddling him. Her fingers applying rhythmic pressure to his spine, reducing him to a quivering pile of mush.

"That's not too tender is it? This node is holding a lot of tension." she asked softly.

"No it's lovely, how did you learn this?" he asked, his voice muffled.

"It was part of my training in physiological control. I studied with my great-grandmother, T'Pandra." she explained.

"Remind me to thank her."

"She died four months ago." Taryn told him. "Tuvan Syndrome."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "your grandfather?"

"He attained kolinahr and chose a contemplative life in seclusion. I've never met him." she shifted to another area of his back. "You don't relax easily do you? I'm guessing you don't sleep well either."

"You can tell that just by feeling?" She was right, he rarely slept well. He struggled to get to sleep because he found it hard to relax. The soporific effects of warm milk had its limitations and no Doctor worth their salt would give him sedatives with his history of addiction.

"That and I've, you know, met you." She smiled.

"I always slept best on the holodeck." he admitted.

"You felt safe there." Taryn whispered.

"Have you been talking to Deanna?" he asked.

"No." Taryn giggled softly. "I just," she paused, "understand."

"I keep forgetting you're a shrink, an inorganic shrink." he corrected. She stopped kneading his back.

"Inorganic psychosocial development." she snorted, "Inorganic. Why didn't I think of that? It's obvious. The practical application of cognitive development techniques on inorganic lifeforms. I always thought artificial or synthetic were too limiting. I've worked with a number of species that don't fit those terms but push the boundaries of what we call life." She returned the pressure to the area between his shoulder blades. "You've just given me the final jigsaw piece for my thesis proposal."

"You're working towards a doctorate?" he asked, "I'm not sure I like you being better qualified than me."

"Engineers rarely study to PhD level." she told him. "You have no reason to be insecure regarding your credentials." she leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "academic or otherwise."

"I thought my credentials were out of bounds." he muttered.

"No, mine are." she advised him flatly, "You can get as carried away as you like, it's me that starts leaking when she gets too turned on." she snorted. "Perhaps I should rephrase that statement?" she giggled softly.

"It's me that gets affected though, it's my fault. My problem." Much as he liked the idea of continuing intimate activity he wasn't happy at it being one sided, he wanted to please her as much as she pleased him. "I'm not, no I'm not… getting carried away without you. It would be selfish."

"For a start, it's _our_ problem." she informed him. "Besides, I survived okay without getting… carried away till a few nights ago." Reg turned and looked at her in disbelief, "What? You think you have the monopoly on having problems relaxing?"

"Are you saying you never climaxed till we…? You must have. On your own at least."

"Not even buffing the muff. I get all embarrassed and uptight as soon as I feel my pheromones release. My therapist thinks it's to do with trust issues. I mean I enjoy it and the intimacy I just never… hit the high notes. Until you anyway. I suppose I must feel safe with you."

"That's disturbing. Not that you feel safe with me or the trust thing… that you call it buffing the muff." he smirked and shook his head slightly. "What's it like holding back your hormones all the time?" he asked returning his face to the pillow.

"Now there's a question and a half." She paused for a moment, "I suppose it's like trying not to wee."

"So when you get intimate you feel like you're peeing your pants in public?"

"I've never thought of it like that, but yes. That's very perceptive." she commented.

He smirked, "I must be starting to sober up. I need another drink."

"That's a common reaction to meeting my family. Turning to the bottle." she said working on his neck.

"You haven't met mine yet." he muttered. Then started to laugh. "Up yours Trey." he sniggered, Trey may have landed his party first but it was him who rocked her planet.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about him, I had no idea you knew him till Dr Z mentioned it at the meeting. It was before we even met."

"Did you love him?" he asked.

"I thought so at the time, but in retrospect no. He was sweet, attentive and said all the right things, but I was an idiot and I didn't realise it was all an act to get me into bed. He wasn't even considerate enough to dump me, he just moved on to Debbie."

"I always thought he was a douche." Reg commented. "He was screwing his way through Jupiter Station when I worked with him."

"A douche would have been a more exciting experience." Taryn said archly, and waggled her little finger in Reg's eye line. He snorted. So Trey, the infamous love machine lacked credentials. No wonder his conquests looked so disappointed, he'd always thought it was because he dumped them as soon as he'd dipped his wick. She changed rhythm slightly and adjusted the pressure. He felt as though he was melting into the bed.

"Can you show me how to do this?" he asked.

"Uh-huh, it's an activity that's supposed to be shared." she whispered, "It's a misconception that Vulcan relationships are cold. They may not be passionate by our standards, but they can be incredibly intimate and sensual."

He sighed and felt the universe melt away around him.

 ** _Author's note._**

 ** _I do not own the Marx Brothers, any characters from 101 Dalmatians written by Dodie Smith and owned by Disney, nor do I own any characters from Star Wars._**

 ** _On the topic of Barclay's age. I've been deliberately vague after much soul searching. This story is set in 2380 and according to Memory Beta Barclay was born in 2340 making him the grand old age of forty, which Dwight Schultz, bless him, clearly isn't. In the TNG episode Genesis when he's convinced he has_** ** _Terellian Death Syndrome, Dr Crusher tells him he has 70 or 80 years left to live. According to Memory Alpha 24_** ** _th_** ** _century humans can live till 137 which would put him at 57 in 2370, which is too old, older than Dwight Schultz actual age in Voyager Endgame which is set in 2378. Do you see my dilemma? I'm tempted to split the difference and call him forty-eight but I'm more than open to suggestions if anyone has strong feelings about it. It would give our lovers a twenty-year age gap but I can live with that, and the Taryn and Barclay in my head don't seem to mind. (No, they don't talk to me as such but they occasionally shout 'I wouldn't say that' when I write their dialogue and Barclay occasionally waves hysterically and says 'you're channeling Murdock there, not me.' I have a strange writing process, what can I say?) Oh and yes, I never liked the idea of 'Rene Picard' so I renamed the sprog. Memory Beta can go screw on that point seeing as they screwed me on Barclay's age and gave me a migraine!_**

 ** _I hope you're still with me as we get to the final few chapters. The sequel is moving along but it still needs a lot of work. I just passed the 100k word mark. (This story is 138k or so and they'll probably be similar in length.) I may be moving house soon and I don't know when I'll get t'internet so if I vanish for a while I'll be back soon. My hairier half is a gamer so I doubt I'll be without the net for long, he can't go 72 hours without battering an orc or a goblin so it will be a priority, probably before food._**

 ** _Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed, it really is appreciated._**

 ** _ync_**


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

Barclay woke with a sigh. He'd slept well, it was possibly the best night's sleep he'd had since he was a child. He was alone in the bed, but he could hear rhythmic, deep breathing nearby. He scanned the room and saw Taryn sitting quietly in a chair. From her relaxed posture and the clasping of her hands with her index fingers outstretched she was clearly deep in meditation. She looked beautiful, peaceful and calm. He rose quietly, not wishing to disturb her and went to the bathroom. She was still there when he emerged showered and dressed, locked in her thoughts. He wondered if she had slept at all. She could probably be fine without sleep for extended periods but after she overdosed herself on her own hormones he worried that she wasn't looking after herself properly. She did seemed fit and healthy though and his train of thought drifted off at the thought of just how healthy she looked naked.

"Oh, you're up." She smiled at him. "Sorry. I was miles away."

"Um, so was I actually." he blushed and smiled. "Did you get any sleep?"

"No I wasn't tired." she replied, "Are you hungry?" she got up and walked towards him. "Are you okay?" she frowned. "You've gone all shy on me."

He didn't feel shy exactly, he did feel a little awkward. There was so much to learn about her and he wanted to know everything. Spending time with her father and brother had highlighted how little he knew her, despite the fact they appeared to accept him and his relationship with Taryn.

"We have to talk." he told her.

"Oh God." she paled and turned away.

"No, no. Not like that. I mean we need to learn more about each other." he blurted. She slapped his upper arm, probably not as hard as he deserved.

"Don't do that to me Reg." She tried to calm her breathing.

He pulled her against him and rocked her. "You really do have trust issues don't you?" he smiled and buried his face in her hair. "I'm sorry, I don't always say things the right way." He kissed the top of her head. "Buttered toast and fennel tea?"

"Lovely, but liquorice tea please." she replied.

He smiled, she seemed to love the piquancy of aniseed and liquorice flavours, and the heat of cinnamon. She never drank coffee or tea, not only because she was unaffected by caffeine but she disliked the taste. Okay, this was a start, perhaps he knew more about her than he realised. He put her breakfast on the table and replicated his own, eggs benedict and coffee.

"Thank you. Did your mother give you boiled egg and soldiers for breakfast when you were little?" Taryn asked.

"Soldiers?"

"Strips of toast cut lengthways." she explained.

"Only when I was sick and it was my father. Why?" he replied sipping his coffee.

"Just a guess." She smiled slyly and munched her toast.

"Are you analysing me?" he asked.

"Sorry, it's a bad habit. I'm always trying to link adult behaviours to childhood experiences." she replied guiltily. "Do you always have egg for breakfast?"

"Usually." he replied. "Is there some significance to that beyond the fact I like eggs. They're a good source of protein."

"Not really an issue with nutritionally balanced replicated food." Taryn pointed out, "You associate egg and bread with comfort."

He dropped his fork, she was probably right the more he thought about it.

"It's not just you, everyone does it to some extent." She sipped her tea. "With me it's carrot cake."

"Okay my turn. First love. Go." he blurted. All the blood drained from her face, she nearly dropped her mug and she struggled to retain her composure.

"You, you're the only one that counts." She smiled. He wasn't buying it, she knew exactly what he was asking. "You want a list, don't you?" she asked and looked away sadly. "And you aren't asking about love." she sighed. "If you want the full, no holds barred history of sexual experiences I will tell you because I trust you and you really are the only one that counts, but you need to know two things. Apart from me no other person in the universe knows everything I'm going to say. Secondly, you will never think of me in the same way if I tell you."

"Do you really think anything you could say would change how I feel about you?" Barclay asked.

"Think, not feel." she said, "How you think of me."

He needed to know, imagining was worse than the truth could ever be. She drew a deep breath opposite him.

"I suppose I should start at zero, because he wasn't really a lover but I did nearly end up married to him."

"I thought you said I was the first to propose." he said, looking hurt.

"You were. We were seven or eight, both hybrids and we played together well so T'Pandra tried to arrange our marriage. Dad did his nut and it was called off." she replied.

He smiled, as far as Reg was aware this was quite normal for someone of Vulcan heritage, and not exactly what he was driving at, but it was all information and that was good.

"My first, I never talk about, other than with Bryan, my therapist. He… It wasn't consensual. It happened on Barin Prime. From what he said he was abusing Tira as well years before which probably explains her man-hating homicidal rampage through the galaxy."

"What did you do? Did you report it?" He didn't even know if rape was a crime in Orion society.

"I told my cousin Nareev. He sliced off the man's knackers and fed them to the hounds, then cauterized the wounds with a poker and sent him on his way, I heard he quit as the family accountant and never said why. We never told Edara. I never told my Dad, I was about to start at Daystrom and he was already worried about how I'd cope socially in an adult environment."

"You were fourteen?" Barclay asked incredulously. This was just awful, no wonder she hadn't wanted to tell him.

"Actually I was still thirteen." she forced a smile at him and turned away. "The thing I remember most, more than the… physical act was how he kept saying it was my dirty human blood that made him do it. It seemed, it still seems ironic really." She snorted, "It was a very J.K. Rowling comment too. He all but called me a Mudblood, like Hermione Granger. I always identified with her, I never did fit anywhere completely. Apart from at home. I found her taste in men questionable though. I always though Professor Snape was more her foil despite the age difference." She smiled, more genuinely this time. "You don't know what I'm referring to do you?"

"Not really, but I understand not fitting in." He finally understood other things too. Why she worked with artificial life and cared about how they felt. How she understood him so well. She was emotionally a human with the body and opportunism of an Orion and the intellect of a Vulcan, yet all three worlds regarded her as alien. She may have been nurtured and loved within her family but beyond that she was always an outsider. He was an outsider too, until Deanna dragged him by the scruff of the neck into the land of the living, but he always felt like a square peg in a round hole. He often imagined that Data felt much the same, as did most artificial beings. "He didn't, I mean, you weren't…"

"What pregnant? No, I only started menstruating properly around four years ago. That's not unusual for Vulcans. They reach sexual maturity later than most species."

"That, actually makes it worse." he replied sadly.

"Then at the Academy I got groped a few times at parties as I mentioned the other day sometimes willingly though and then I met my second in my final year. He was lovely and gentle and exactly what I needed at the time, but we were assigned to different ships when we graduated. We did the long distance thing for a while but it didn't really work and things petered out." She picked up her toast and munched on it in silence for a few moments, then took a sip of her tea before continuing.

"The third seduced me for a bet, but I didn't find out till later. I even made him wait weeks, it must have been quite a wager. The fourth was adorable but he nearly had a nervous breakdown because I went into heat for the first time while we were dating." she looked at Reg. "I probably should have mentioned that earlier shouldn't I?"

"You go on heat?" She nodded in response. Reg made a mental note to spend more time working out if he was going to keep up with her.

"Then there was five, he was the one with the bucket list. Then there was six the serial seducer, then someone groped me again. Seven, now he was something special." she smiled.

"Did he treat you better?" Reg asked appalled at the behaviour of his fellow man.

"He has so far." she smiled.

"Oh." Barclay said and smiled realising she meant him. "I expected the list to be longer." he forced a smile, "No wonder your Dad thinks I'm a step up considering the competition."

"Don't put yourself down. My Dad may tend to knock back a few whenever Edara hoves into view, not to mention he's an ocean going idiot for letting you all get drunk considering the situation we're in, but he never drinks with someone he doesn't like."

"By that measure he likes Dan." Reg said.

"Dan's full of piss and vinegar and in dire need of seasoning but his hearts in the right place and he's got a lot of potential. With the right encouragement and training he could do my job and be excellent at it. I shouldn't say this but I think Bruce is holding him back, he's keeping him sweet with the research assistant job because he's tempted to switch fields. Cybernetics is stalled and has been for years. You get plenty of students enrolling and graduating but when it comes to it they go on to specialise in fields that move faster." Taryn smiled and finished her tea.

"Stalled, how so? he asked between chewing his breakfast.

"Do you know what an Ingenieur is?" she asked.

"It's French for engineer isn't it?" he replied.

"It's also the term for a designer of illusions, magic tricks." She smiled slyly. "Imagine an illusionist comes up with a trick so amazing, so perfectly constructed that no one, and I mean no one can tell how it's done. The allure of the illusion is so fascinating that every other illusionist in existence becomes fixated on it, desperate to replicate the magic. They study it, they deconstruct it frame by frame to solve the riddle but they can't. The Ingenieur becomes a recluse, no one can find him to ask how he did it, and then he dies and takes the secret with him but the obsession continues. Every ingenieur is so focused on reverse engineering the illusion they aren't coming up with new ideas and in the end…"

"No more magic." Reg concluded. "So why haven't you come up with some magic of your own? Built an android?"

"I have a premise for one and some basic designs, but. When I resign it will be different, Starfleet won't be able to claim my creation as intellectual property. I've always known you can't wear this uniform and build androids. Data proved that." She paused for a moment lost in thought. "But enough about the politics of the cybernetic world. Now it's your turn, let's hear it, the life and loves of R Barclay."

"You don't want to know. It's pathetic." he said, putting sown his fork and picking up his coffee.

"And I'm Mata Hari of course." she rolled her eyes.

"No it's… I didn't really start dating till after I started counselling and before that…"

"The holodeck." she said softly. He nodded. "You've nothing to be ashamed of you know." she told him. "The shame lies in the fact you slipped through so many nets."

"Deanna said something very similar once." he smiled. "And it's not as if I've had a lot of luck with women since I started counselling." he paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, "I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea, I wasn't constantly pumping and humping photons in there. It wasn't about that."

"I know." She smiled, "I have to admit I've availed myself of the odd program since I started coming into season. It's not easy being single and green. I can't say it did a lot for me really but that's nothing new." she reached out and touched his hand. He smiled and interlocked his fingers with hers. "Do you think we're moving too fast?" she asked.

"No." he replied plainly. "Part of me wants things to move faster." He smiled and looked into her eyes. "Do you think we're moving too fast?"

"I keep hearing Bryan's voice saying that. But, no I don't feel that way."

She went quiet and looked away, idly rubbing her upper arm with her other hand. She was right, he did think differently about her. She was stronger and more resilient than he ever thought was possible. Her father had picked her names well, Taryn meant thunder in Welsh, he'd looked it up and Boudicca, who suffered indignity and degradation at the hands of the Romans and came back fighting. She was certainly a thunderous warrior queen, it was a pity he wasn't the powerful ruler his name implied to match.

He knew there was more he should tell her, the painting, Program 9. He owed her that, she'd been so honest and shared things with him that were far more difficult to say. Part of him was terrified that she'd think he was a lunatic. That knowing he had fixated on a picture that resembled her so uncannily would somehow diminish how she perceived his feelings for her. That he loved the painting and she was somehow second best. It would be easier to show her but he'd need to access his personal files and they may have locked him out since his abduction.

"There is, something I need to tell you about." he began.

 _"_ _Lieutenant Commander Prior and Lieutenant Commander Barclay, please report to the Observation Lounge."_ Data requested.

"Duty calls. Can it wait?" she asked softly.

He nodded and tapped his communicator. "We're on our way."

"Oh, Edara wants to meet you." Taryn said as they left the room, "I sort of told her we were married." she looked over her shoulder at him, "Well you did say you wanted things to move faster."

…

" _Things were a damn sight less complicated in the 23_ _rd_ _century."_ It wasn't the first time those words had crossed the mind or lips of Morgan Bateson and he doubted it would be the last. He hadn't been happy with his orders, no Starfleet Captain ever wanted to apprehend a Federation ship and arrest fellow officers, it went against the grain let alone when the orders were to maintain radio silence, collapse the shields by force or prefix and beam them directly to a holding cell. He didn't even have the appropriate arrest orders, it just said they were being interned under a security order no-one seemed to know anything about. In the course of following the orders they'd been fired on by Klingons who cloaked and vanished as mysteriously as they had arrived along with the Chekov, then they were informed by Vice Admiral Haftel to locate and apprehend the Enterprise only to be attacked by Orions.

The reason for that was sitting opposite him at the conference table in the Enterprise's Observation Lounge, the mixed race grandchild of an Orion grande fromage and a science officer no less. He hadn't realised there were currently any Orions in Starfleet but this girl was clearly no ordinary Orion. She didn't smell like one, for one thing, nor did she have the right ears. Pretty girl though he thought, but it was clear from the body language of the engineer sat next to her that he regarded her as his property. If he were a dog he'd be lifting his leg to her. They'd have to get him to tone that down if the plan was going to work.

He wasn't sure about this plan of hers, it came down to an android who was supposed to be dead, an Orion girl and a stammering engineer. Not exactly a crack team of commandos. Picard and Janeway were supporting it, so was Admiral Prior, this girl was connected on all sides it seemed.

The plan seemed to hinge on the value of the three officers acting as bait. On paper it made sense if the files they'd shown him were true. But if the files were true ships Captains could be shunted aside by two artificial crewmen on remote control at a moment's notice by persons unknown and that had to be nipped in the bud.

On the topic of remote control he was still offended at the suggestion he had been commanding the Odyssey with the prefix code. He hadn't received his orders until the Sovereign class ship was a cloud of debris, something apparently the three officers that would be dangling on the hook were behind.

Perhaps there was hope for this plan after all.

"Is what Ms Prior proposes possible Reg?" Janeway asked.

"It's feasible, but I…I'd have to see the…the matrix to be certain." Barclay replied, fidgeting awkwardly with his hands. "I know, I mean, well….she's already attempted to c...crack the c…c"

It was so subtle that Bateson nearly didn't catch it. The young woman turned in her chair and momentarily brushed her knee against Barclay's and flashed him a reassuring glance. So this wasn't a one-sided chemically induced infatuation after all. Not to mention she was far better at controlling her mannerisms than he was. From the reactions of Picard, Janeway and Data the man didn't usually stammer so badly. It must be the new variable at the table, himself. Bateson softened his posture and relaxed, he knew he was a big man who could appear imposing although he was more of a thinker than a man of action. Barclay was his equal in height and clearly no ten stone weakling but he knew that didn't matter. His childhood best friend had a stammer and was always worse with new people until he started speech therapy, but that was over a century ago. He thought speech impediments of this kind were a thing of the past.

"…the construct several times and I don't know if I can be any more successful." Barclay explained.

"With all due respect to Commander Prior, her expertise lies in cybernetics rather than holography. If anyone can perform this task it is you." Data commented.

"How long do we have until we reach Galor IV?" Taryn asked.

"Five days, ten hours, seventeen minutes at warp five." Data replied.

"I could always say I developed a spot of engine trouble if you need longer." Bateson smiled, "The Bozeman is no spring chicken after all."

"We have a copy of the matrix we need in the Bastion memory core, sitting in the cargo bay." Taryn explained, "If we can get it to work."

"I know Dr Zimmerman is impatient to ascertain the status of that core." Captain Picard commented.

"If we could prepare the altered matrix in advance, it would reduce the likelihood of Commander Barclay getting caught with his fingers in the cookie jar." Taryn reasoned, "But we'd have to find some way to sneak it into the complex."

"How big is it?" Barclay asked.

"Big." she tilted her head. "Somewhere between Moriarty and The Doctor in terms of size but he grows with experience so it isn't easy to quantify."

"Could the matrix be stored in my neural net?" Data asked.

"Theoretically, but believe me you don't want him in your head Commander." Taryn warned. "He has as much in common with the Iconian program as he does with The Doctor. He's a problem solver and he's extremely difficult to remove once he's resident."

"I might, have an idea how we can transport the matrix." Barclay intoned, "But first of all we need to look at it."

"Very well, once the Bastion's core has been inspected and we know what, if anything can be retrieved, we can reconvene." Picard smiled.

"Captain, with your permission, I have an obligation to Dr Tainer, which I would like to fulfil as soon as possible. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours at the most." Taryn requested.

"Permission granted. I'm sure Mr Barclay can make a start without you and Commander Data if need be. Dismissed."

"Thank you sir." Taryn replied as she rose and exited the room with Barclay and Data followed.

"Those three destroyed the Odyssey?" Bateson asked. "A teenage android, a little green girl and…"

"Consider yourself lucky the Bortas picked them up before you did." Janeway advised him. "They're still trying to round up the crew of the Bastion in escape pods after Mr Barclay convinced them the ship was about to be destroyed while sealed in a cargo bay."

"Before that he helped that 'little green girl' take control of the ships computer by creating holographic ghosts for the security teams to chase, keeping them out of her way." Picard stated, "While sealed in a cargo bay." he added. "Haftel picked the wrong collection of researchers for his opening gambit when he put La Forge, Barclay and Prior on the same ship. He still doesn't know about Data, and that is in our favour as well."

Bateson snorted, his father had a habit of saying 'if he had brains, he'd be dangerous' and Barclay was apparently a man with brains, so was Data, regardless of his current youthful appearance. No, it was the girl that was the problem, she was already a turncoat. What if she was a double agent who had everyone fooled? But then, she had an awful lot of people convinced, including two family members. "Once they're in the complex they'll be on their own, they'll have to find their own way out. I don't like sending people in without an extraction plan." Bateson commented. "Especially a scientist and an engineer with no tactical experience."

"If they succeed, they'll find their own way out." Picard intoned.

"If they fail, were all up the creek without a paddle." Janeway added.

…

Barclay walked slowly around the computer core with a tricorder, scratching the back of his head. It was laid down in order to fit it in the cargo hold. It had taken more than a few knocks when the ship broke up around it but was more or less intact. As for the data inside it, that was anyone's guess. For a start the power connection was smashed, the male end of the cabling hadn't disconnected as Data had hoped, it had split the female housing. God, he was back to sex again. He wasn't as bad as this as a teenager.

He had to keep his mind on the job. Not only was Bastion in this core but so was Hayley, Leonard the iguana and Roy the fly. Poor Roy had a crisis of confidence after The Doctor squashed him with a book in a fit of pique, shortly after nearly taking Reg's eye out with it. Reg understood of course, Dr Z had that effect on most people. There were also at least five hundred other holograms resident but as to how many were sentient no-one knew, but at least one for certain. The one they were looking for.

Well, first of all he needed power, and it would be easier to replace the entire power unit.

"Don't worry Bastion." he said patting the core. "Uncle Reg will make it all better." The doors opened and Data entered. "I thought you'd be a while sir."

"It appears my presence is both unrequired and unwelcome." Data stated, crouching to inspect the damage to the power unit. "Nor will they tell me what they are doing."

"It's crackered." Reg told him.

"You have been spending too much time with Taryn." Data told him

"I don't think that's possible." Barclay smiled, grabbing a tool from the top of a crate. "What worries me, is what if I remove something that is part of Bastion. Is he housed in memory or part of the processor firmware?" he asked as he started to remove the power unit.

"That is a good question." Data asked and tilted his head, "I am not entirely certain where I am… housed so I cannot answer that." he replied as he took the weight of the unit. "Do you believe the memory is intact?"

"Physically, yes. But I can't comment on the integrity yet." He looked at the back of the power unit as Data lifted it off. This would have been a three-man and an anti-grav job without him. "That's… not good." he said with a grimace and inspected the space it had left in the core. "I hope he isn't in the processor, it's fried. The power must have spiked when the connector ripped out."

Data placed the damaged component on the floor and looked at the damage.

"I was afraid this would happen, but we needed to keep the computer active until the last possible moment to maintain life support."

"You could have just beamed Taryn off the ship." Barclay argued, "Sir." he added, remembering Data's promotion. Their time at the same rank had been brief, but Barclay had wondered if he would retire as a Lieutenant. Not that it mattered much at Daystrom, rank was more relaxed there as it was a civilian establishment as much as a Starfleet one. He rolled onto his back and slid into the space between the twin memory modules underneath the core.

"As far as I am aware you also require oxygen to breathe and at that point you had not released the warp core yet." Data told him, "Not to mention she would have ripped my neural net out via my nostrils before she would leave you on board."

"I think the memory might be all we can salvage. The coolant has all vaporised, there must be a leak somewhere." Reg said as he removed a panel and shoved it out across the floor, "That's… different."

"What is?" Data asked.

"This memory module is… Well, look for yourself."

Data rolled onto his back and slid under beside him. "It is unusual for a conventional memory system." Data said, "It appears to be more similar to the memory engrams used in Soong-type androids. My previous body in particular, Dr Soong made small refinements to each android he built trying to perfect the process."

"So that's what he meant." Reg exclaimed. "Bastion said he'd concluded you were his father from the Annex database. He must have wanted a father and ran a comparison to all the other inorganic life-forms on file. Like a cybernetic DNA test." he snorted, "To think I thought…"

"What?" Data asked.

"I thought you'd done some weird android sex thing."

"With Taryn," Data asked incredulously, "and we conceived a fifteen by five metre ships computer that is two decks tall?"

"Well if you put it like that…" Reg said, "I know, I was being a…a jealous idiot. I know she grabbed your butt by the way. I also know you were supposed to be looking after her when she got off her tits on synthehol, then nearly got them out for all to see."

"I am sorry, I was unaware of the effect synthehol would have on her. Nor did I in any way encourage her to…handle my hind quarters." Data apologised.

"Are you two boys working under there or are you just having an argument?" Juliana asked.

"We are working." Data lied. "Have you finished whatever you were doing?" he asked staying under the core.

"Yes we have. Haven't we? I must say Taryn does good work." Juliana laughed.

"It was my pleasure. It's not every day you get to help someone become immortal." Taryn commented. "Or take half a century off someone's age."

Data grabbed the core and slid out from under it, it tool Reg a little longer.

"Mother you look…" he smiled.

"I know." Juliana bounced up and down with excitement. She looked in her early twenties, with sparkling eyes and auburn hair. "No more wrinkles, no more grey hair, no more algorithm counting down to a death by natural causes. "I'll need a new identity of course. It'll be hard to explain otherwise. Taryn thinks her brother may be able to help with that. Apparently he has some shady friends."

Taryn walked over to where Reg was sitting and crouched beside him.

"Some weird android sex thing?" she asked incredulously.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Reg lied, badly and got up. "How did this core end up getting installed on a ship, it's…."

"Abnormal?" Taryn arched a brow. "Even before they reconfigured everything the Bastion was off spec. I think they built it in a hurry. This core was always going to create an awareness, but the one it spawned on its own was a maniac, so I built a new, more stable intelligence when Haftel told me it would be my ship. I didn't have the heart to decommission a core that was inherently alive or let Haftel break it up and make androids out of it."

Reg hadn't thought of that. He knew she had to be two steps ahead of her Commanding officer for the last year or so but it was easy to forget just how much was at risk. If Haftel really was working for Section 31 he'd be capable of anything not to mention untouchable.

"You're worth too much to him, you'll be okay." Taryn reassured him. There were times when he could swear she was empathic, but her father had told him she had an abnormal neurological structure, similar to her twin. He couldn't speak or hear and she was not only without any psionic ability at all, she was unreadable by every empath or telepath she'd ever come across although he was receptive to mind-melds. She simply read people, if she hadn't joined Starfleet she'd probably have ended up as a confidence trickster in the Orion Syndicate. This time, however, she was wrong.

"Actually I was thinking of you. He doesn't know you've separated Data's matrix and he has other cyberneticists. He has Dar, what if he…"

"I'm absolutely sure I can convince him I'm still his asset. I wouldn't have volunteered for this mission otherwise and I certainly wouldn't be bringing you along for the ride." She looked at him earnestly, "Just how close are you to building a mobile emitter?"

"Closer than it looks in that file your brother swiped." Reg admitted, "But I can stall."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but can you stall convincingly?" she asked reluctantly.

"I sabotaged the Doctor's program and convinced him and Dr Z that it was terminally degrading once, and I fooled some ferengi into thinking I was my own hologram." he smiled, "I'm sure I could come up with something."

"I had no idea you could be so devious." She flashed a wolfish grin, she seemed impressed.

"Dr Crusher is a very patient acting coach, and I had a lot, and I mean a lot, of help from Deanna." He paused, "Bateson thinks I'm the weak link."

"Bateson doesn't know you, and it's me he doesn't trust." she replied. "His body language is pretty tied down, but I'm sure he thinks I'm leading you both into the lion's den under Haftel's orders." She chewed her lip thoughtfully.

"He doesn't know you either." he said, wishing she wouldn't bite her lip like that. It made him want to join in.

"You know. I don't want you to stall on the mobile emitter. I'll have to discuss it with Data and get clearance from the brass, but… I'll think about it a bit more and get back to you." She smiled slyly.

"Well, we need to make some decisions about this computer first. It looks like we can save the memory but the rest is fritzed. Do we connect the memory to the Enterprise core as auxiliary storage or do you want it to stand alone?"

"You're not going to like it, but there may be more lurking in here than I'm aware of and if we connect it to the Enterprise system…."

"I thought that was what you might say." He slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm going to Engineering and Ships Stores. I won't be long. Make yourself useful and find a power coupling." he said as he strode from the cargo bay and tapped his communicator. "Barclay to Ashby. Are you still waiting at tables or would you like to do some engineering?"

…

"This is engineering?" Dan moaned as he leant on the anti-grav trolley.

"I never said it would be exciting." Reg said as he flicked through the screen on the large scale replicator in ships stores.

"Reg, I've had an idea." Geordi said as he entered the room. "I think we could put the core in Holodeck 1 and connect it to the hologrid that way. "It would be easier than trying to build a hololab in the cargo bay."

"We'd have to uncouple the holodeck from the main computer, but that would work." He nodded, "Oh shoot, she's going to kill me." he tapped his communicator. "Barclay to Taryn Prior"

" _Yes Reg_."

"Have you found a power source yet?" he asked grimacing.

" _Yes, why?_ " she asked ominously.

"Geordi suggested we decamp to Holodeck 1. I think it's a good idea."

 _"_ _In other words I've spent the last hour configuring a connection we don't need."_ she sighed. _"It's a good job I love you Reginald Barclay or you'd be getting a thorough spanking later."_

"Don't let that stop you." he smiled.

 _"_ _I'll make this safe then give Data a hand stripping out the processor till you get back."_ she said. _"You do still want the old processor out?"_

"Yes, we still need to replace it." He rolled his eyes, he deserved that comment. "We nearly have all we need for the rebuild. I'll try and get the larger components transported direct to the holodeck. Barclay out."

"I take it things are going well between the two of you?" Geordi grinned.

"You could say that." Barclay smiled.

"That's an understatement, they're shacking up together and last night her Dad gave him permission to marry her." Dan told Geordi, "Admittedly he was drunk at the time."

"Yes, but she's proving harder to convince." Reg said sadly.

"Reg, she's agreed to move in and have your children. That's a pretty big commitment for a relationship that's less than a week old." Geordi pointed out. "She's not going to run off if you don't put a ring on her finger."

"I know… I just want to make vows to her. Is that so strange?" Reg asked.

"So it's not about marking out your territory then?" Geordi asked.

"No. She's not chattel or property for me to engrave my name on."

"Have you told Taryn that?"

Reg blinked, she must know surely. Could that be why she's not saying yes?

…

"No, I'm still not agreeing to marry you yet." she told him as she worked on the core kneeling down. "But it's very sweet that you feel that way. I had assumed you were trying to stake your claim."

"Your Dad gave permission." he told her.

She froze and turned, staring at him. Every inch the warrior queen with thunder in her eyes.

"You asked my father for his permission to marry me?" she asked through gritted teeth. "Did he offer you a dowry? Ask what your prospects are?" She huffed, "A minute ago you were saying I wasn't chattel and now it's the 17th century all of a sudden."

"It wasn't like that. Geoff asked if we'd talked about marriage and I said I'd asked but you kept side-stepping the issue and your father said he wouldn't object. We were all drunk, it was hardly a formal undertaking."

"It just pisses me off that everyone in my bloody family is hell-bent on marrying me off." She froze and blinked. "This isn't about my family is it? You want to make a commitment before someone else objects."

"I…I…"

"Not your father, he looked after you when you were unwell, he's the nurturer." she reasoned. Her eyes widened, "This is about your mother!"

"Not… entirely, I…" He knew it was the wrong response as soon as it left his mouth.

"You're ashamed of me." She put down the tool she was using and stood up. "I need to take a break. Commander, what time is it?"

"1838 hours." Data replied.

"Is it alright if I get something to eat and some sleep sir? I'll be back by midnight."

"Of course, you do not have to ask permission Taryn. Nor do you need to be so formal when we are not on the bridge." Data replied.

"Taryn wait." Reg said grabbing her arm.

"Don't, just…" she looked up at him. "I love you and still want to live with you. But I won't marry you to stick it to your mother and you need to think about whether you really want to be with someone you want to introduce to your parents as a fait accompli." She sighed, "I'm really tired and we can't be together while I sleep so I'll see you later."

He watched her walk off the holodeck.

"If you wish to go after her it is probably time you and Dan took a break also." Data told him.

"There's no point, she's right. I am ashamed to introduce her to my mother."

He picked up the tool she had been using, dropped to one knee and began work from where she had left off.

 _Author's note._

 _I do not own any of the characters from the Harry Potter Books by JK Rowling._


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

 _It was dark, devoid of light but she could feel the cool air on her skin and rhythmic pressure on her ribcage._

 _"_ _I need you to stand back." It was his voice. How hadn't she noticed what a lovely, gentle voice he has? "You might want to cover your eyes."_

 _"_ _What? No!" Geordi shouted._

 _A brilliant flash lit the darkness, it seemed to envelop the dark world she was dwelling in. Then came the sound. It wasn't a cry or a wail it was more guttural and followed by a thump seconds later, the sound of a body hitting the floor. A tricorder alert sounded near her ear._

 _"_ _She's seizing." The Doctor stated and she felt the sting of a hypospray._

 _"_ _Doc, we need you over here." Geordi yelled. "Barclay's down, I can't find a pulse."_

 _"_ _I can't leave her right now. Data, get over there, see what you can do." The Doctor ordered._

 _"_ _Can I help you Doctor?" It was a man's voice that she didn't recognise._

 _"_ _She's in neural shock. I think she heard Barclay, or saw the flash, something triggered it. Get that blanket under her head before she brains herself. What's his status Data?" The Doctor shouted._

 _"_ _He is in cardiac arrest." Data replied, "I have begun CPR."_

 _"_ _Data, try this hypospray, catch!"_

 _"_ _Bastion we really need another medical tricorder at the very least." Geordi pleaded._

 _"_ _Abandon ship. All hands abandon ship. A torpedo is overloading in the forward port torpedo bank. Internal sensors are down. Lifepod 1 is ejecting. Lifepod 6 is ejecting…" Bastion's voice sounded panicked._

 _"_ _Bastion, it is a power surge, everything is fine." Data commented. "We are trying to get the crew to leave the ship."_

 _"_ _If they're evacuating I'll try and get to the Bridge, get those holo-emitters up." Geordi suggested. "Let's grab some rifles and get going people. Bastion?"_

 _"_ _Yes Commander. I am releasing the door."_

 _"_ _She's not responding." The Doctor stated and she felt another hypospray at her throat._

 _"_ _He has an irregular pulse, extremely faint." Data reported._

 _"_ _I don't have a cardiac stimulator to defibrillate him, give him this hypo and try a precordial thump, incoming!" The Doctor suggested. "Try not to cave his chest in." There was a hiss followed by a thud._

 _"_ _No effect." Data commented._

 _"_ _Try again Data." he ordered, "Can you hold her head still Mitchell, I'm going to have to inject this into her cortex through her eye." There was another thud._

 _"_ _No effect." Data replied._

 _"_ _What? You're kidding? I can't hold her still while she's torqueing up and down." Mitchell protested._

 _"_ _I've grabbed all the medkits I could find." It sounded like the Doctor only gruffer, Zimmerman._

 _"_ _Open that one." The Doctor instructed. "Take it over to Data, grab that tricorder and assist him please doctor." There was the click of second case opening, then a third._

 _"_ _Thank you." Data replied and there was a tearing of fabric. "What setting Doctor?"_

 _"_ _He's in ventricular fibrillation, I think." Zimmerman replied. "It looks like massive cellular damage to his left arm…his chest…God Almighty."_

 _"_ _200 joules Data." the Doctor shouted, "Applying 20 millijoules neurostatic pulse." The Doctor muttered._

 _"_ _Applying stimulation. Stand clear." Data called._

 _"_ _No change." Zimmerman stated._

 _"_ _She's still in neural shock."_

 _"_ _Increasing to 30 millijoules." The Doctor said._

 _"_ _Applying stimulation. Stand clear." Data called._

 _"_ _Her neural pattern is stabilising Doctor."_

 _"_ _Finally," The Doctor replied, "Data, we need to swap places…"_

 _"_ _Is he going to lose his arm?" Zimmerman asked._

 _"_ _At the moment I'll settle for saving his life." The Doctor replied. "Stand clear."_

 _"_ _He's still in VF." Zimmerman replied._

 _"_ _Mitchell, how quickly can you replicate an artificial heart? I'm not sure his is going to be viable even if we get a sinus rhythm. There's a lot of damage." The Doctor asked. "Clear."_

 _"_ _No change." Zimmerman stated._

 _"_ _Don't do this Reg she'll never forgive me. Clear."_

Taryn woke with a gasp and sat up, panting for breath and bathed in sweat. Her dreams were always vivid, intense, a by-product of her Vulcan blood but this dream… It was a memory she was certain, and not a pleasant one. She rose rapidly and ran into the bathroom, stripping off her nightclothes as she ran.

"Computer, increase air recycling and scrub rate to maximum. Shower on."

…

It was past eleven and Reg was still working. Data had left earlier as he was down to command the night shift and Dan had just begun work on the coolant system when he'd opened a panel and got covered in something. From the tricorder scans it was a mixture of carbon and congealed coolant, fortunately non-toxic and inert but extremely messy. He'd sent Dan to get a shower and some rest and come back in the morning and begun cleaning out the mess. It was too late to change out of his uniform, it was all over his hands but he at least had his sleeves pushed up.

The door whirred as it opened and Taryn flew in and grabbed him around the waist, nearly winding him.

"Are you okay?" she asked squeezing him tight. She seemed to be listening to his heart and breathing rapidly.

"I'm fine, I'd hug you back but…" he looked at the state of his hands. "Are you alright?"

"Where is everyone?" she asked still clinging to him.

"Data has night duty on the Bridge and Dan's getting some sleep. What's the matter?" He wanted so much to hold her. He crossed his arms behind her, trying not to get goo on her uniform or hair.

"It's nothing. You look tired." Taryn said softly, letting him go.

"I want to get this finished." Reg said turning back to the core. "See if the core will initialise."

"Have you eaten since breakfast?" she asked.

"I'm not hungry." He cast his eyes at her, "I'm really sorry about earlier. I'm not ashamed of you. It's… My mother can be judgmental and she's… career Starfleet, all spit and polish and stand by your beds."

"And for a scientist I'm all touchy feely and bohemian." Taryn added

"I just, I want to tell them, I definitely will tell my Dad, I know he'll love you, but I haven't had much experience of taking girls to meet my Mother and what little I have has been a disaster." He looked up and leant his arm against the core. She moved closer, pressed herself against his back and rubbed his chest with her hands. "Don't, don't do that, I'll have to ravish you up against Bastion," he smiled, "and I'm not sure how we'd explain him needing therapy to his father."

She sighed and started to pull away. "If you don't want to tell your mother about us then that's fine, I won't be marrying her. I mean living with her."

"Did you just…" he turned around smiling.

"Did I just what?" she asked, "So what still needs doing?" she asked, changing the topic.

"No, no you just said you would marry me."

"I think you're delirious again." she said dismissively. "Or drunk."

"Where's Data when I need a witness?" Reg smiled.

"Technically I said wouldn't be marrying your mother." Taryn stated.

"We both know what that implies."

"I've already said I'll do the decent thing if I get you up the duff, what more do you want?" Taryn smiled and examined the core with a scanning device.

"Does it work the other way around?" he asked, looking at the readout over her shoulder.

"I think that's inferred." She looked at him askance.

"What are our chances again?" he asked.

"Three percent at best." she frowned, "I'm sorry, it's my fault."

"No, it's _our_ problem," he reminded her, "and I don't help the situation."

"I don't think it's going to work." she said sadly.

"You and me?" he blurted, feeling like she'd ripped his heart out.

"No, you prat. This memory core. It's been through too much. Had a ship fall apart around it, been exposed to antimatter radiation, a vacuum and been towed all over the place. It's just not designed for that kind of stress."

"Neither are we and we came through it okay." Reg reasoned. "Perhaps the fact that it isn't benchmark standard will work in its favour."

"We aren't exactly benchmark standard either and we get by I suppose." She smiled at him warmly. "Is this gunk all through the cooling system?"

"Yes, I'm not sure how best to remove it. Flush it till it runs clear, use a solvent or try and sonic clean it?" he suggested.

"Well, you're the one with the degree in Systems Engineering, I bow to your superior knowledge." Taryn smiled.

"We need someone with a degree in Sticky Stuff." he said, picking at the dark substance on his hands. She approached him with a hand held sonic cleaner and ran it over one of his hands.

"Well, this method works on you." she smiled. "I don't have a degree in all things sticky but I am a big sister and an auntie. It's no picnic getting glue out of a screaming three year old's hair."

"I've been meaning to ask you. Why didn't you join Starfleet as a Graduate? You must have been eligible." he asked, watching as she cleaned up his hands.

"They don't offer you a Commission when you're eighteen no matter how clever you are. Besides I didn't want to be a cyberneticist, or a specialist in AI. I wanted to roam the galaxy sitting at an Ops station. I went to Daystrom because the Academy won't take early entrants and they do. Shipboard prodigies like Wesley Crusher get field experience, planetside ones end up with time to kill."

"At least you didn't have to pass with honours if you already had a degree." he looked at her face, her expression looked guilty, "You passed with honours didn't you?" she nodded. "So what's your other degree?"

"Exobiology and Engineering."

"You have three Batchelor's degrees and a Master's degree?"

"I have two Master's." she admitted. I've earned one in Psychosocial Science while I've been at the Annex. I don't sleep much and I have a lot of time on my hands so I study." she paused, "Getting my doctorate is, well it's more about the work than the qualification if I'm honest. Anyway, you can talk, you went to Daystrom and the Academy too."

"Five degrees." he smiled. "I think that's the sexiest thing I've ever heard. Anyway I didn't get my Masters in Computer Systems till I was twenty-two and I didn't do the full stint at the Academy, I entered as a graduate." He noticed she was looking at him as if she expected him to confess to something. "But I did graduate with honours in Systems Engineering and Theoretical Physics."

"Who can resist the allure of a nerdy overachiever?" she smiled.

"I'm struggling to." he muttered, "Did you do something to me last night? I've been really… turned on all day." he admitted softly.

"Oh." She smiled, "All I did was help you relax." She tilted her head. "Although, you're possibly experiencing a drop in cortisol levels and you aren't used to it."

"Cortisol?"

"It's a hormone related to stress and the fight or flight response in humans. It supresses non-essential bodily functions including the reproductive system."

"So you think I produce cortisol?" he asked as he began cleaning the core.

"Reg, you are a walking cortisol factory." she said, as she joined him.

"So why can't they fix it? Some kind of treatment?" he asked indignantly.

"How many different relaxation techniques did Counsellor Troi teach you over the years?"

"More than I can count." he admitted.

"That's the treatment, that's how they fix it. You need to relax and break the cycle. You encourage hormones back into balance gently, you don't go in bull at a gate and start drug therapy. There is no quick fix."

No, there never is a quick fix when it comes to what's wrong with him. Every time he took a step forward he seemed to take two back. He broke the holo-addiction and his transporter phobia got worse and his hypochondria reached new heights. Now his hypochondria is better but he's terrified at the thought of something happening to Taryn. What if she got sick? What if they couldn't treat her because of her unique physiology? What if she died?

"We need to come up with something to clean on the inside." Taryn said.

She was right, the level of sonic cleaning to reach the internal cooling system would damage the core. They needed something to clean inside at a lower level.

"Computer, give me a terminal." he asked and sat at the holographic console and started work.

Taryn looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Now that is clever."

"It's not exactly an exocomp, but it should do the job." he replied. "Meet…" He paused trying to think of a name. "Charlotte."

A metallic creature with eight legs appeared on the top of the console. Around the centre of her body in a ring were tiny sonic emitters.

"As in Charlotte's Web?" She smiled, "I like old books as well as old movies." she added at his expression. "Let's hope she doesn't mistake Roy for lunch when we find him."

Reg picked up his creation, it was clearly arachnoid but cute with it he thought. Not scary and hairy like that thing Chief O'Brien had set on him in Ten Forward although it was similar in size. He gently introduced her to one of the pipes that lead from the opened hatch for the coolant system. Charlotte turned and looked at him, chirped then crawled off down the pipe, cleaning as she went. Beside him Taryn scanned with a tricorder.

"It's working, but it's going to take her a while to traverse the entire system." She concluded, "Shall we leave her to it and come back in the morning. You should take a break if you're hungry."

"I'm not hungry." he replied.

"I wasn't talking about food." She flashed him a wolfish smile, handed him the tricorder and headed for the door.

…

"That was incredible." he panted when he was finally able to speak. "I think you've ruined me for Deltan women."

"That was the general idea." She smiled, lying on her stomach beside him, "Have you had any replies yet?" She looked at him askance.

"I daren't look, between that ad and my Risan stalker I'm terrified to check my post." he looked at her, "I still have that vacation booked if you want to go?"

"Do you want me to be your bodyguard?" she giggled. "Protect you from Inoti?" She looked at him. "I'd love to go with you."

He smiled, rolled onto his side and stroked her back, she was in her underwear, it was silky and dark orange, almost copper in colour. He liked it but he'd much prefer her naked. "Do you think this thing Tuvok is suggesting will work?"

"I looked it up, it's a valid theory and I'm willing to take the risk."

"It doesn't seem fair that you're the one getting infected with a microbe and it's my problem."

" _Our_ problem. It's a relatively harmless microbe and it is something I've always been curious about."

"I bet you have." he whispered as he shifted to press gentle kisses the small of her back. "Now I know why Horatio likes sleeping here."

"Stop it." she said playfully.

"Don't you want a turn?" he asked, moving her hair aside to kiss her shoulder and moving towards her neck.

"Tempting, but no." she replied. "I'm looking at this as an investment. One I'm expecting to pay out after I go through Pon farr," she gazed at him longingly, "with interest."

"I will pay you back I promise. Even if it takes the rest of my life." He took her hand and kissed her palm. "How did you learn to do that?"

"What? I know how to do a lot of things." she giggled. "Do you mean external prostate massage?"

"Is that what it was?" His eyes widened, "I didn't know that was possible."

"You're so vanilla." she smirked, "Edara enrolled me on a course."

"What kind of course?" he snapped. "And what is vanilla supposed to mean?" Much as he'd enjoyed the experience he didn't like the idea of his lover enrolled in some sordid Orion sex seminar. Her expression was one of embarrassed humour, revealing dimples in her cheeks. He didn't get to see those often enough, they were adorable.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but it was entitled 'Initiation to the Ways of Love'." She snorted as his mouth fell open in horror, "It wasn't as much fun as it sounds. It was taught by an eighty-four year old woman with a collection of fruit and vegetables that she used to demonstrate various techniques."

"Wait, were you trained as a…"

"Choose your next words very carefully Mr Barclay, if you want me to go anywhere near your perineum again." she warned.

"A courtesan?"

"No!" she replied indignantly, "Direct female descendants of a Tahedri do not get trained as courtesans even if they are mixed race." She pouted. "They get trained to keep the preferably high born male they marry from straying and under their thumb. They're expected to be the consort of a powerful ruler."

"Somehow I don't think I'm the powerful ruler your grandmother had in mind." Reg added sadly. "Despite my having the right name."

"Not exactly no, but it's about you being Human more than anything else and it's not like I match her expectations either. She believes in love and she'll accept you, don't worry. She said herself that if I love you she will."

"She really said that?" Reg asked hopefully.

She nodded, "She's an old romantic, it's an Orion trait they don't advertise. They believe in everlasting love that transcends the physical. I don't think she ever got over my grandfather really. That's probably the real reason she doesn't want Emlyn around, he looks just like Surok according to T'Pandra, but Edara's too proud to admit it."

He'd never thought of Orion's as romantic beings believing in eternal love, but then, so little was known about them and so much of that was sales pitch and propaganda. Small wonder there was so much fear and distrust of them as a species, they positively encouraged it. But that didn't make life easy for the woman he had chosen to spend his life with, if she'd put up with him that long. It certainly didn't make introducing her to his mother any easier, but that was as much about the painting in his father's study as the colour of her skin.

His mother had liked Hope. She even liked that she tried to make him her pet project and improve his promotion prospects. He heard the alarm bells while the pair of them were sitting, drinking tea together, discussing him as if he were a ship long overdue for a refit and realised if she wanted to change him that much he wasn't the right man for her. He'd also made the cardinal error of telling her about Leosa and had to eat crow when she robbed him, left him and involved him in a plot to kidnap Seven of Nine.

"Go to sleep Reg," Taryn said, "You have to be up in five hours." She grabbed a padd from the bedside table and began to read.

"I'm not tired." He yawned.

"Of course not." She smiled.

"I just realised something. This is the first time we've been intimate and actually spent time alone together in bed." he mused. "It's nice, I could get used to it."

She gave him a look that made his heart melt, put down the padd and snuggled up to him.

"So tell me why you tackled me on the holodeck earlier?" he asked.

"I had a nightmare. Well, it wasn't really a dream, I remembered something from while they were trying to revive me on the Bastion."

"Really?" he replied.

"I couldn't see anything but I heard you talking."

"The Doctor said you were reacting to my voice." he smiled and idly stroked her hair.

"Oh I was reacting, when you nearly killed yourself and flew across the cargo bay I went into neural shock."

"What? I didn't know that. Although he did say there was a point where he thought he'd lose us both."

"Well, The stupid Doctor stayed with me while you almost died."

"Yes, but Data was there and it turned out okay." he explained.

"You know about this?" she asked incredulously. "Did you know you nearly lost an arm and ended up with an artificial heart?"

"The Doctor… might have mentioned it." he replied reluctantly. He pulled her closer as she started to react, "I didn't though and I'm fine. Do you really think I could have survived the work out you just gave me if I had any lasting problems?" She sniffed and smiled. "Believe me it was nothing compared to what happened before that. I held you, you know? Cradled in my arms. You weren't breathing, your heart had stopped and you were all bloodied and in your horrible Starfleet underwear…" he smirked, "I still thought you looked beautiful. Everyone must have thought I was insane, one minute The Doctor and Geordi were trying to convince me to ask you on a date and the next minute it I was weeping over you like we were star crossed lovers. But Data didn't seem to think you'd mind, he put you in my arms now I think about it. The Doctor had given up on you. Then Data just grabbed you and started CPR out of nowhere and he brought you back to me." He kissed her forehead. "If the Doctor had let you die to save me I'd have decompiled his program, very slowly while he was conscious."

"I think you should remember how you felt that day while you're introducing me to your mother." Taryn whispered. "And remind me to take my university transcripts with me in case she thinks I'm a hooker."

He laughed, she was right. He loved her and that was all that mattered. If his mother was going to be less reasonable than an embittered Orion She-Devil then there was no hope for her.

"You know I never did ask you out." He smiled, "Will you have dinner with me?"

"That's a little redundant given we're in bed together," she laughed. "and so adorable." She kissed him, a soft, warm teasing kiss that soon deepened until she was kissing him like her life depended on it.

"For God's sake woman, are you trying to kill me?" he said sternly, "I'm utterly spent and I need to be up in five hours." He turned his back to her, smiling broadly. She nestled into his back and he clasped the hand she placed on his chest.

"I love you, you prat." Taryn whispered into his ear.

He sighed, she was right about one thing, she may not be the ideal consort for an Orion potentate but she was his perfect life-mate.

…

As Beverly sat in her office listening to the debate she really wished Dr Selar was on board to advise her, there were times when having a Vulcan doctor around was invaluable and this was one of them. She had to admit the premise was sound and based in scientific fact but while she could see where The Doctor was coming from she had the feeling egos were about to be bruised by the direction of his argument.

"No offence Reg, but have you considered the consequences if you fail to satisfy her?" The Doctor argued.

Ouch, that was literally below the belt and much quicker than she thought he'd get to that counterclaim.

"I assure you that isn't an issue Doctor." Taryn smiled slyly and gave Reg a look that could make a marble statue blush. It certainly turned him almost scarlet.

"Commander Tuvok, perhaps you could run through this theory again for me?" Dr Crusher asked.

Tuvok sat with his fingers steepled. "As I understand it, The Doctor believes the only way to prevent Mr Barclay from being affected by Commander Prior's pheromones is for them to initiate a mating bond. However the only way to form that bond is during Pon farr. As we do not know when or even if Commander Prior will experience the time of mating, it will be necessary to stimulate it artificially with a reaction to certain microbes."

"And the risks?" she asked.

"No greater than a naturally occurring Pon farr."

"Which brings the risk of death if the Pon farr fails to be resolved." The Doctor argued.

"Um, Doctor." Reg stated nervously and pointed towards the medical bay.

Beverly looked across the sickbay and her jaw dropped. The Doctor stood and ran through the quarantine field but was too late, she'd already pressed a hypospray to her neck.

"Well, it's a moot point now." Beverly said.

"Taryn, we're supposed to be fixing the core!" Reg exclaimed. "What are you thinking?"

"I don't think she's thinking of anything at the moment." The Doctor said applying a sensor to her neck and rapidly backing away. Taryn dropped into a crouch with her hands on the floor, bared her teeth and hissed at the hologram. "The source of the green animal women myth. She's going into heat like an Orion as well as Pon farr."

"W…what?" Reg eyed her as she turned her gaze to him and emitted a feral growl. "It's...I mean it's…that fast?"

"She gave herself an entire vial." The Doctor explained and looked at the readout. He looked at Dr Crusher, "I'm just a locum, you're the CMO. It's your call."

Great, it was her call. Well she'd be damned if she'd let them go at it in her Sickbay again. Not that she begrudged them their fun but, okay she begrudged them their fun.

"H...h…how will I know if she's initiated the bond?" Reg asked, looking extremely nervous.

"You will also experience the symptoms of Pon farr, the blood fever." Tuvok stated.

Now Reg looked really worried, clearly no-one had mentioned that part.

"Thank you Mr Tuvok, I believe we can take it from here." Beverly smiled. "Is she infectious Doctor?"

"No, she used an inert microbe that will metabolise in a few hours. She did her homework." he replied. "Psylosinine?"

"Can't hurt." Beverly stated. "We could dose them both." The Doctor nodded and approached the hissing, angry green woman with a hypospray.

"W…what's psylosinine?" Reg asked nervously.

"It's a neurotransmitter." she told him, giving him the hypospray. "It's commonly found in Betazoids and associated with telepathy. It might give you the edge in forming this bond but we're on uncharted territory here. This is all educated guesswork." Beverly tapped her communicator. "Crusher to Transporter Room one. Lock on to Commander Taryn Prior and beam her to the quarters assigned to Commander Barclay." she ordered as she applied a sensor to Barclay's neck. "Go home Reg, good luck." she told him and patted him on the arm as Taryn dematerialised.

"What? That's it… just..." he protested.

"Reg, we can't do the next bit for you." Beverly told him with a wry smile. "We'll monitor you both from here."

"I'd get to your quarters before she drags a passing stranger in from the corridor." The Doctor said archly.

"Oh God." Reg exclaimed and ran from the room.

"She's going to eat him alive," Beverly stated.

…

"Taryn?" Reg called nervously as the door opened to his quarters. He really couldn't believe she would do something so irresponsible, especially considering their mission and the time pressure they were under. Then the answer occurred to him. As long as he was there she would be unable to use her pheromones at the Annex if she needed to. At best he'd cease to function, at worst he'd perceive every male as a threat. She needed to at least try and give him immunity before the mission, not after.

He stepped into the darkened room and heard a growl. He briefly wondered if this experience would be his last, she sounded feral, savage but then he was good with animals, it would probably be okay. As the door hissed shut behind him she pounced, pinning him against it and clambered up his body like a cat climbing a tree. Her skin was hot, searing hot and glistening with sweat as she clung to him, stripped to her underwear. She ripped the collar open on his uniform with her teeth and pressed her face into his neck and shoulder, sniffing, licking and, dear God she was purring.

She suddenly stopped, retreated rapidly and hissed, her teeth flashing in the dark.

"Prove that it's you." she growled with menace.

"What? Of course it's me…I…"

"The Doctor," she spat as she circled Reg like he was prey, "He wants to stop me, stop this."

Considering The Doctor's impassioned argument and her current feral mind-set it was understandable she would perceive that he was coming between her and her mate, but this seemed a little paranoid. "You think he sent my hologram?" Reg asked.

"You could be him." she snarled. "The Doctor."

"Um… okay well… Ooh the list, my list…" He gesticulated with his hands then pulled them back. She hissed and snarled, perceiving them as a threat. "You do remember the bucket list?"

She tilted her head and fixed him with her stare. "Six."

"Six, it had to be six." he muttered. "Okay, visit the Smithsonian, break into the Phoenix and have sex in the pilot's seat of the first ever warp ship." She smiled, but didn't relax. "Look, I've been reading about this and…um." he walked towards her slowly. "This is supposed to help." he took her hand and folded it leaving two fingers extended then pressed his fingers to hers. Her breath hitched in her heaving chest at the touch. He was still capable of independent thought so she must be holding back her pheromones on top of it all.

He never expected her to appear so pained, she was hurting, aching. Like most non-Vulcans he'd wondered about Pon farr and like most human males had considered what it must be like to be with a sexually ravenous woman who had waited seven years to mate, not to mention harbouring thoughts about the insatiable green animal women, his fixation on a certain girl in a painting had fuelled many a wet dream in his teens. But this wasn't some abstract sexual fantasy, this was the woman he loved.

Their fingers still touching she raised her face to his and he dipped his head and pressed his cheek to hers. There wasn't much on file about Vulcan mating practices, for a logical species they were inordinately churlish about sex and reproduction, but from his research on the subject this is how you start. He let his fingers slide down hers then up again and down the other side eventually pressing the heel of his palm to hers. She trembled but her breathing became a little more relaxed. This was the limit of his knowledge on the topic, he'd hoped that instinct would take it from there. He really hoped it would because he really didn't anticipate what a turn on touching fingers and faces would be. Intimate and sensual was how Taryn described Vulcan relationships and she wasn't wrong.

By the same measure he wasn't wrong about instinct, she grabbed his shoulders, forced him to his knees, straddled his lap and grasped his face in both hands, her fingers pressed behind his ears. Momentary panic gripped him as it felt as though she was lifting him from his body and into hers.

 _She was in a tank, floating in fluid, pressed against her brother for comfort. The lights were dimmed but too bright for her eyes, her eyelids membrane thin. The sound had gone, the thumping of her mother's heart! She became alarmed, it was too quiet. She heard the sound, a tapping sound like metal on a tiled floor and turned to see the blurred, distorted image of a woman with slender green legs striding away, her waist length ebony hair whipping behind her. She knew instinctively she would never see her again…_

 _He was lying in a crib looking at a mobile of the Earth's solar system. The voices were shouting again, his mother was screaming at his father. She had married him for his connections, his family name to help her career and now he had resigned his commission to write books on Federation history? To be a stay-at-home Dad? He started to cry and Daddy appeared over the crib. Called him his sweet little Reggie and held him against his shoulder…_

 _She was still in the tank, upside down, her head between his brother's legs. It was still too bright, too cold, too quiet. She heard a familiar voice and two large faces peered in at them._

 _"_ _Time is critical," the deep voice with a lilting tone explained. "If you agree we need to do this right away or we'll lose them both."_

 _One of the faces framed in auburn hair nodded. "Of course I'll be your surrogate."_

 _"_ _Thank you Marianne," her father wept…_

 _He was struggling to fold hospital corners on his bed with his mother looming over him. Pooky-Bear tumbled from under his pillow and his mother tutted. Grabbed the toy and walked to the replicator. This was a lesson he had to learn, big boys don't sleep with toys. She threw the bear into the slot and hit recycle…_

 _She was in the garden wrestling with her brothers. Haydn pinned her arms down and she struggled, giggling as Cadfael tickled her underarms and Emlyn her feet. She squealed as Geoffrey lifted her top and blew a raspberry on her belly. She swore she would get them all back, laughing with them…_

 _He stroked the kitten that rubbed against his hands and tried to ignore the argument in the room next door._

 _"_ _Reg, I can't believe you got the boy a cat behind my back!"_

 _"_ _I can't believe you recycled our four-year old son's favourite toy. I had to do something, Reggie was inconsolable."_

 _"_ _Maybe I wouldn't have to enforce rules if you were any kind of a man, Reginald the Third will never amount to anything if you keep coddling him."_

 _"_ _There's no easy way to say this, but I think you should move out Alicia, I've seen a lawyer and I want a divorce."_

 _"_ _If you think you're keeping MY son think again. I'll sling so much mud at you and your family you won't get custody of the damn kitten!"_

 _Water, she was surrounded by water and she frantically reached for the surface. Panic, all she knew was panic and the muted sound of her brothers playing nearby. Her lungs were already filling with water and a large bubble erupted from her mouth and headed to the surface. She sank deeper into the pool with her arms and legs flailing, the chemical taste of the water in her mouth and burning in her lungs. She felt someone grab her around the chest and propel her to the surface, choking spluttering, gasping for breath._

 _"_ _It's okay Taz, I've got you." Cadfael told her as he swam towards the side of the pool towing her with him as she coughed and spluttered. Gasping for breath. "Geoff! Hay! Get Dad, she nearly drowned!"_

 _"_ _What is it?" His grandmother asked looking at his science project._

 _"_ _It's a holo-projector." Reg explained. "You put the isolinear chip here and it displays the images that are on it. Like a slideshow."_

 _"_ _And you built this all by yourself?" she asked._

 _"_ _Yes Nana."_

 _"_ _I'm very proud of you!" She kissed him on the temple and walked over to his Grandpa. "Reg, have you seen what little Reggie built?"_

 _"_ _I know." he replied with a smile and then added in hushed tones, "The school he's at is ideal for him, they have great science and technology departments but Alicia is insisting on trying to get him into some military school." he rolled his eyes. "Turn him into a man."_

 _"_ _He's eight years old, bright and sensitive. It's time she accepted that and stopped trying to turn him into a carbon copy of herself. Why is Junior still with her?"_

 _"_ _She's made it clear he'll get custody over her dead body and if he leaves who will protect the boy?"_

 _She was at a wedding, a baby in her arms, finally another girl, a sister at last. Marianne looked beautiful and would soon officially be her Mum, but then she always was her mum in every way that counted…_

 _He was face down in the hallway with blood dripping from his nose, he suspected it was broken. He got up slowly and headed to class, wiping his nose on his sleeve. He hated this school, no one liked him. He was sick of being hit, sick of being tormented and sick to the back teeth of being Reggie the Veggie…_

 _"_ _Be careful Ta'in!" urged her little sister. She was wrestling a doll from the mouth of an enormous brown dog. Slobber everywhere._

 _"_ _Henry give." she ordered, took the doll and vaulted over the fence where Tegan was sobbing, Haydn was holding Nye on his hip and Cadfael and Emlyn were watching._

 _"_ _Can you fix Truly Ta'in?" Her tiny sister wailed. Of course she could fix her, but she needed to clean her up first, she was covered in drool. Tegan took the doll and sniffed back her tears, she wasn't bothered with drool or even if she still worked, she just loved the doll her big sister had made for her and clutched her to her chest. All things considered Truly had weathered the assault quite well, a few teeth marks were easy enough to knock out but from the fact she was now miming the vocal sub-processor had taken a battering. Cadfael snatched the doll from the little girl, threw it back into next door's garden and laughed as Tegan emitted a high-pitched shriek._

 _"_ _You're such an arsehole Cadfael," she told her brother and jumped back over the fence…_

 _He looked at the padd and made some notes on another with a stylus. They were arguing again._

 _"_ _My son does not need speech therapy Reg, he just needs to buck his ideas up."_

 _"_ _But the school counsellor recommended it Alicia, we can't just ignore their advice._

 _"_ _We can if it's bad advice. Why was he seeing the counsellor anyway?"_

 _"_ _They're worried and so am I. He isn't socialising, he isn't speaking to people and hasn't grown out of the stammer. He keeps getting bullied. He's not suited to that military school you're insisting on and it's too far from home. He's spending an hour a day queuing at the Transporter Station and you know how nervous he gets about transporting."_

 _"_ _Not this again Reg, it's a good school, a little teasing can be character building and I'm not having you ferry him to and fro. He's thirteen, he needs to be more self-reliant."_

 _"_ _Character building? They're kicking the shit out of him every other day!"_

 _He'd heard enough, gathered his homework and left for the library via his bedroom window…_

 _She was crouched in the corner, her clothes torn, her thighs bruised and bloody, tears streaming down her face. The door opened and a boy of no more than eighteen entered in tight leather trousers and a black string vest, he was muscular and green skinned. Horror formed on her cousin's face when he saw her and crouched beside her, gently stroking her long black hair away from her tearful eyes. The young man spoke in Orion and simply said one word._

 _"_ _Who?"_

 _He was sitting beside his Dad in the hovercar on the way to the hospital. He was holding a handkerchief to his bleeding nose and mouth and holding his broken ribs._

 _"_ _You're never going back to that school." his Dad told him. "I'm enrolling you at the local High School tomorrow."_

 _"_ _What about Mother?"_

 _"_ _She can rant and rave all she wants at my lawyer. I'm filing for divorce. I've had it."_

 _"_ _But what if I end up with her." he asked nervously._

 _"_ _You're old enough to choose where you live now," his father reached over and cupped the back of his head with his hand, "if she wants to make and issue of it she'll get the fight of her life."_

 _"_ _That is satisfactory." T'Pandra said impassively at the end of the meditation exercise, high praise indeed. She was kneeling on the floor at the apex of a triangle with Emlyn and Taryn forming the other points with a small lamp burning between them. "I would like to try a new exercise. Move closer." she instructed. "I am going to perform The Bridging of Minds." She reached forward and positioned her hands on their faces. "My mind to your minds. My thoughts to your thoughts…"_

 _She felt the presence of T'Pandra's ordered mind. It was familiar, they had melded before many times but there was someone else. She reached into her twin's mind, exploring. It was loud, filled with music combining and twisting into a fugue, but it was also silent, a study in contradictions. She felt him touch her mind for the first time, tentatively, gently. He was happy, thrilled to have finally made contact with his twin's mind._

 _He woke with a raging hangover and was shocked to find himself naked with a nude woman in bed beside him. God alive, he'd lost his cherry on his first night on campus. His mother had warned him about the dangers of alcohol and loose women at the Academy, although he didn't think the girl next to him was particularly loose. Jenny seemed quite sweet the night before and had actually made the effort to speak to him. She was lovely, perhaps even girlfriend material, she certainly seemed to like him as much as he did her. Jenny stirred, awakened at his movement in the bed. Her mouth fell open in horror as she looked at him._

 _"_ _Sorry Reg, I mean you're a nice guy but I was really drunk and I thought you were your roommate Mike..."_

 _Karna pleaded with her, "This will make me feel better? This will stop the pain, the loneliness?"_

 _"_ _It will." she promised as she made the final connection. "After this upgrade there will be no more sorrow, no more sadness, no more guilt." It was a solemn vow, it was also a lie. Karna wouldn't just feel no more torment, he would never feel or think anything again._

 _"_ _Do it, make it all stop please?" the consciousness wailed._

 _She clenched her jaw, tears forming in her eyes as she pulled the alien device which resembled a maglock, turned it and let it sink home. She watched as the ionising pulse spread through the massive awareness's neural net destroying everything it touched, tears rolling down her face…_

 _He was on the bridge of the Enterprise,_ "" _Good, I'll look forward to your report, Mr. Broccoli... Barclay." Picard corrected. He paled, mumbled his excuses and walked away sadly…_

 _She was walking down a corridor on the Bastion. She'd hoped they'd get these corpses off the ship before the upgrade teams arrived. She shook her head and saw a tall drink of water step out of the Transporter Room and watched all the blood drain from his face at the sight of the body bags. He turned and looked at her, dark eyes burning with a mixture of recognition, shock and yearning. She touched him on the arm to reassure him, felt an unexpected momentary thrill at the contact and spoke gentle words of comfort and reassurance._

 _"_ _Nice eyes." she thought and looked back to check him out from behind then cocked a brow at the view. "Now that is a sturdy undercarriage. I wonder how bright he is?" she considered as she walked away._

 _"_ _Oh God, so many bodies. I think I'm gonna spew." He thought with alarm as he left the Transporter Room, then he saw her, it was her, it was definitely her. Who was she? He had to find out. She looked young though, too young for the rank on her collar, too young to be interested in a nervous wreck like him. Early twenties maybe, but he couldn't be certain, not always easy to tell with non-humans. "Oh, she even has the ears. She touched me, oh. I can die happy now, I've seen her, she spoke to me and she touched my arm. I'll never wash it again." he thought. "Her voice, it's like velvet and that accent…" He turned around and watched her walk away. "Oh, so that's what it's supposed to look like." he mused. "I really didn't do her justice."_

Reg awoke to find them lying on the floor of his quarters stark naked with Taryn sprawled across him. They were lying surrounded by wreckage. The coffee table was smashed, all the furniture was upended or broken, a vase was in pieces with its flowers crushed and strewn about, pictures were hanging at angles and it looked like the bed had collapsed on three sides. In fact it looked like a whirlwind had gone through the room, either that or they'd gone at it hammer and tongs on or up against every surface in the place and if the disjointed images in his mind were anything to go by they'd done just that. The couch was lying on its back, he remembered the couch, and on top of the dining table and had vague recollections that explained the cracked and shorting panel on the replicator but otherwise he didn't have a clear memory of what had happened. He remembered feeling as though red hot plasma was running through his veins and knew with every particle of his being that he needed to mate with his woman, now. That she was his ailment, his addiction, his life-support, and his cure. Blood fever was certainly the right name for it. He had little memory of the… it was clearly a meld of some sort but he assumed it was a mating bond. He had the feeling he'd experienced moments from her life but they faded like a dream the more he tried to remember. He had no idea if their experience was normal for a Vulcan or not. Normal was pretty much an abandoned concept when it came to Taryn. He wondered how exactly they would explain the fact they had trashed guest quarters having sex. It's not like they were Klingons after all. He'd expected to end up all clawed and bitten but he wasn't in any pain of discomfort and seemed completely unscathed. From what he could see they appeared to be none the worse for wear until he craned his neck a little further and spotted a pair of teeth marks in Taryn's left buttock. She may be flexible from years of gymnastics but he was fairly certain they would match his bite radius rather than hers.

"Computer? What time is it?" he asked, rubbing his face.

" _1342 hours_."

"Thirteen..fou? What day?" he asked in a panic.

" _Stardate 57303._ "

"Five and a half hours?" he muttered, it felt much longer.

Taryn stirred and caressed his chest hair. "I can see why Neelix likes sleeping here." she murmured. Then looked up at him. "Will you do something for me?" she asked seductively.

"I will do anything for you." he replied earnestly, running his fingers through her hair.

"I need you to go to the Bridge." she said, toying idly along his collarbone with a finger, "I need you… to walk onto the Bridge naked."

Now he got it, she was testing his immunity. "Okay." he replied and waited for her to move so he could stand. Disappointment spread over her face as he got up and headed to the door. The cheeky woman! She wasn't stopping him. "Would you actually let me walk out of here in the nude and go to the Bridge?"

"I knew it, you sod!" she exclaimed with a smile and threw a cushion at him. "I knew it had worked."

…

"Shouldn't we stand it upright?" Dan asked, scanning the computer core. "Surely the coolant won't flow properly in this position."

Barclay looked at him over the tricorder he was holding. "They work in Zero-G." he replied, "There is no up or down in space."

"Sorry, silly question." Dan said and continued the scan.

"There are no silly questions." Taryn told him as she sat cross legged on the floor with a portable terminal on the floor in front of her that was connected via an optical cable. "It's how you learn. No-one expects you to know everything." She smirked, "We have Data for that."

"I do not know everything." Data replied and tilted his head, "Are you calling me a know-it-all?"

"Yes Data," Taryn replied, "but I'm only teasing you."

Data quirked his brow, "I do fit the parameters for that particular epithet."

"Yes, but we all find it adorable. Speaking of knowing things, I've been meaning to ask you something. When you first appeared you said B-4 had an occlusion somewhere and… well, we flushed his micro-hydraulics and looked everywhere and never found it."

"If you did not find it, you did not look everywhere." Data replied cryptically and adjusted the settings on his tricorder.

"Aw, come on sir." Dan pleaded, "At least give us a clue?"

"It is in a system that is not always active." Data replied and gave Taryn a smirk. She smiled back knowingly and Reg knew she'd worked it out.

"Not…" Dan frowned with thought. "Well the only part of a Soong-type's micro-hydraulic network that isn't constantly active is in the pelvic assembly. His erectile function."

Data seemed impressed with the young Ensign. "At some point someone, I suspect our father fitted a blanking connector in the micro-hydraulic line to his pelvic assembly. I assume this was to protect him from sexual abuse due to his cognitive level. It was how I knew I was in his body and not my own. I found the obstruction during his reassembly, here on the Enterprise prior to my death."

"Does that mean he can never have a sexual relationship?" Dan asked, "I mean, he's doing really well and one day…"

"It shouldn't be too hard to repair if he wants it done in the future. It's not easy to get at but even if the blockage is hard-fixed in there you could always replace the line." Taryn reasoned. "This is looking good from here Reg." Taryn said examining the terminal. "Do you want to try and initialise this beastie?"

"Dan, what do you have?" Barclay asked.

"Everything is optimal." Dan replied.

"Power levels are within normal tolerance." Data confirmed.

He had doubts, what if he'd missed something? What if a linkage blew and it screwed up the AI? He wasn't used to this responsibility. Yes, he always knew what he did affected the safety of the ship and those on it and he felt huge responsibility while working on Pathfinder, all those people stranded so far from home but this was Taryn's child, her creation. He didn't feel this nervous delivering the baby.

"Erm. Yes, let's power it up." Barclay said, heading for the console they had connected to the core and sitting down. He watched Charlotte scuttle across the top, cleaning away the fingerprints he'd just left. She was significantly more obsessive compulsive than he'd anticipated, but was quite an endearing little creature. He'd have to find her a home, someplace dirty. She'd like that. Perhaps The Doctor would let her clean in the Medical Centre at Daystrom. He'd have to ask.

"Reg?" Taryn asked.

"What? Yes, sorry. Starting the boot up sequence."

"Power levels are remaining steady. Data reported.

They watched as lights began to wink into view across the surface of the monolithic computer and blink rhythmically.

"Fluid pressure is optimal. The repair is holding." Dan advised them.

One by one the lights on the core began to hold steady until the entire structure was lit up.

"It's, it's stable." Reg smiled.

"Commencing memory scan." Taryn said, crossing her fingers on both hands and looking at Reg.

"She's even crossing her legs too." Dan commented.

"The ultimate sacrifice." Data added.

"Hey." Reg protested, then stopped as Taryn's terminal chirped.

"That's… not great." she commented.

"What do you have?" Reg asked crouching beside her and looking at her screen. "I think I can do something with that. Let's connect the memory module to the main console."

Reg sat and looked at the scan of the memory on screen with his elbow resting on the console. It was a mess, but he knew a few algorithms he could try. Data looked over his shoulder as he worked.

"I believe a substantial amount of the data is irretrievable." Data commented.

"I should be able to get maybe sixty percent of it back if I'm lucky." Reg told him. "But it's going to take some time."

Data nodded. "I have other duties, but please keep me apprised." he told him and left the holodeck.

Reg nodded and returned his attention to the screen as the first algorithm completed.

"Taryn, what is that?" he asked pointing at the screen. "I don't recognise the file structure."

"That?" she smiled, "That's Bastion." She pressed a few buttons over Reg's shoulder. "He looks intact."

"You can tell from that?" Dan asked, looking at the jumble on the screen.

"It takes practice but you can make out quite a lot from the raw data. That's a hologram." Reg pointed, to an area on screen, "So is that. These are duty logs, those are personal logs and these are correspondence files." He tilted his head and frowned. "That looks like Leonard." he smiled.

"Leonard?"

"Dr Z's pet iguana." Taryn explained. "I can only see around twenty-five photonic matrices Reg. There were over five hundred in this core."

"I still have a few tricks up my sleeve." he reassured her. "Let's connect the core to the holodeck and you can see who we have while I see what else I can salvage."

"If we get hold of some mobile storage units we can keep anyone we recognise separate. What do you think?" Taryn suggested. "I'm sure Dr Z would appreciate getting anyone of his we retrieve back straight away."

"That's a good idea." Reg said. "I know he wanted to help us. I think The Doctor must have him tied down somewhere to keep him out of our way."

It didn't take long for them to make the connection, bring in a second console for Taryn and start work. At first they found Leonard as Reg had suspected, but none of them recognised the others so they catalogued them and left them in the core. The second algorithm unearthed many more holograms, including Roy. Dan went on a break for lunch, but Reg and Taryn decided to keep working.

Then it happened, the last thing Reg had expected. Taryn was stood looking at herself in a bikini made of leaves and a vacant expression on her face.

"What the fuck?" Taryn exclaimed.

"I, er. I c…can explain." Reg stammered.

 _Author's note_

 _I do not own Charlotte's Web by E.B. White_


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Taryn wasn't angry as much as disappointed. She had specifically asked if he had a hologram of her and he had led her to believe that there wasn't one although now she thought about it he'd said there wasn't one she needed to be jealous of. Well from what she was seeing there was plenty to be jealous about. The 'her' in a bikini was draping herself over him and caressing his chest in front of her.

"I don't like this place." the girl cooed in a soprano voice that clearly hailed from the other side of the Atlantic to her own. "Take me back to my glade Reg. I'll die without the forest." she pleaded. She was also a good six inches taller, the ultimate insult. As if that wasn't bad enough her backside was much smaller and her breasts were bigger too.

"Just, not now." he told her and tried to extricate himself from her grasp. "Taryn, look deactivate her program and I'll explain. Please?"

"You can explain?" she spat, "You told me a half truth and made a version of me that is clearly more to your liking. What's to explain?"

"It's not like that." Reg gave up struggling, picked the Dryad up under his arm and carried her over to Taryn's console as the Bastion's core wasn't accepting voice commands.

"You're so masterful today, Reg." the hologram whispered just before he shut down her program.

"I think you'd be happier if you shut me down and kept her." Taryn said coldly. "You wouldn't have to introduce her to your mother." She turned and walked away.

"T…Taryn just, p…please listen?" he begged as the doors closed behind her.

…

Geordi was busy when Reg appeared in Engineering, at least he was trying to look busy. They had an issue of too many chiefs in his department with B'Elanna there as well. He knew she was trying to defer to him and was well aware it was his territory but her formidable nature tended to drive her to take charge and Geordi had a more relaxed leadership approach. Reg was freaking out, he could tell that as soon as he left the turbolift and collided with an ensign, knocking the young officer on his butt and stammering a profuse apology. Geordi shook his head and approached the man before he wreaked any more havoc.

"Reg, what's…?" Geordi looked at his friend's face and knew this wasn't the usual fuss about nothing. "Let's find somewhere to talk okay?" He turned, "B'Elanna can you handle things down here for a while?"

"Sure." she replied, frowning at the expression on Reg's face.

"Okay, tell me exactly what happened." Geordi told him as they sat in a corner of the bar with a drink each.

"She found Program 9 on the Bastion's computer core." Reg fidgeted with his hands. "They must have taken it when they stripped my lab at Daystrom."

"And you haven't told her about it yet?" Geordi asked, "Or the painting?" Reg shook his head in reply. "Have you tried to explain?"

"She won't listen. She thinks I made the hologram after we met and it's how I want her to be. Taller, vacuous and half naked." He dropped his head into his hands. "When we first got together she asked if I had a hologram of her and I said it was a long story but there was no one she needed to be jealous of. She says I told her a half truth and well I did, didn't I."

"Look, I'll try and explain if you like. We can get The Doctor on board, she'll listen to him." Geordi reassured him.

"She'll never believe you. No one sane would believe it." He sighed deeply, "It's too late, it's over. She'll always think I'm seeing Program 9 in my head whenever I look at her. She'll never trust me again." He got up, "I might as well go back to work and find the program she wants me to fix. With any luck the damn thing will rip my head off. It's not like I can feel any worse." He walked away with his head down.

Geordi sighed. Aside from talking to Taryn there was no way to fix this, and even then? He believed Reg, but it did sound ludicrous. Saying that, who would make a story like that up?

"Computer where is Taryn Prior?" he asked.

 _"_ _Lieutenant Commander Prior is on Holodeck 1"_

Geordi winced, Reg was heading her way and she was liable to rip his head off long before the hologram got hold of him. He paused, if Program 9 was as far from Taryn as he described her Reg couldn't use it to convince her of the truth, it would only piss her off. What she needed to see was the painting. But it was a minor work by an unknown artist, not likely to be in the Enterprise computer. He needed to speak to someone who understood art and knew how to get information that was hard to find. He knew just the man for the job.

"La Forge to Data."

 _"_ _Data here."_

"I need a hand with a personal matter, are you available?"

 _"_ _I will be available in eleven minutes. I will come and find you then if that is acceptable?"_

"That's great Data. See you in a while."

…

She was sat at the console when Reg returned to the holodeck. She didn't look up. She didn't even react.

He sat at the other station and checked the status of the algorithm he'd left running. It was complete but had yielded precious little in terms of repaired data. He'd managed to retrieve seventy-four percent all told. Better than he'd expected.

She walked over and placed a mobile storage device next to the other two on his console.

"I found Hayley." she said softly. "You retrieved a lot from the core, you did a really good job, thank you."

"I…I didn't think you'd be speaking to me?" he replied.

"I have to, we have to work together." she replied and returned to her console. "How long?" she snapped.

"Sorry?" he asked.

"How long were you spying on me? I don't know how you did it but that… insipid bitch's outfit left sod all to the imagination and she had my birthmark."

"What birthmark?" Reg asked.

"Oh come on, you've seen me naked." she replied.

"I was a little preoccupied looking at your… I never noticed a birthmark." he blurted.

She pulled at her uniform, and pulled her trousers down at one side to show him her hip. She had a crescent shaped pigment mark on her hip bone around four centimetres long and not the most obvious of blemishes, just a slightly darker patch of skin. Reg thought it looked eminently kissable but was previously unaware of its presence. Nor was he aware that Program 9 had one but he hadn't exactly been looking. He could never get past the vapid gaze and the squeaky voice. To be honest, no matter how devoted she seemed and no matter how he tweaked her parameters she just didn't do it for him.

"Am I interrupting something?" Dan grinned as the doors opened and he walked in.

"Yes, go to lunch." Taryn snapped.

"I just had lunch. Are you guys about to do it?" Dan grinned.

"No, we're breaking up." Reg shouted.

"Don't shout at him." Taryn shouted. "It's not his fault you're a prick." The door whirred as Dan left the holodeck. "And thank you for dumping me in such a thoughtful way. You're even back-handed about that!"

"I didn't… I don't… Well isn't that what's happening here?" he asked sadly.

"No you idiot, we're having a row, and I doubt it will be the last." she shouted. "Do you want to know why I haven't agreed to marry you? Maybe it's because the first time I get justifiably annoyed with you, you come completely unglued and go running off to Engineering. I only went for a frigging pee."

"You didn't say." he defended.

"I wasn't aware I had to ask permission." She looked up, struggling to control her breathing and her emotions, folded her arm across her chest and covered her mouth with her hand. "I want answers. Straightforward, honest answers and a full and frank explanation. I think I deserve that." She sat down at the console and began looking through the files listed on screen.

"You do. And I'll tell you everything but you're going to think I'm insane and probably won't believe me." he told her.

"He's here." She looked up at him. "He's still dormant."

Reg stood behind her and looked at her screen as she brought up the raw matrix. It was big, but not too big for what he had in mind.

"Let's, try and keep him that way. That's…a nasty hologram." he said looking at its structure. "All these recursive loops and redundancies. No wonder you couldn't crack it. It's a mess of code."

"Can you do anything with it?" she asked, giving up her seat for him.

"I can try." he replied, sitting at the console. "I might need Dr Z's help."

The door whirred open and The Doctor walked in with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Dan just called me. He said Mommy and Daddy were fighting and he didn't like it." The Doctor said. "Is everything alright?"

"Is it?" Reg looked up at her hopefully.

"It's not like I didn't know you have issues with holograms so I suppose we can see where we stand after you explain yourself. I'm unhappy and hurt, but we have work to get done and we're don't have unlimited time."

Reg nodded, looking at it from her point of view it was more than he deserved, and to be honest, he needed to think about what he was going to say. Perhaps he should write to her? It might not sound quite so… no it was preposterous whatever way you sliced it and he was fighting a losing battle, but he was certainly going to fight. He looked at the screen, whoever wrote this program didn't want it to be altered, it wasn't uncommon with game writers who wanted to maintain their intellectual property and stop players cheating. This wasn't going to be an easy task.

"Get the other chair and tell me everything you've already tried." Reg said to her. "Perhaps you could take these modules to Dr Zimmerman Doctor? I'm sure he'll be glad to have them back."

"Ask him if he's missing anyone else, ask the others too. Reg managed to retrieve more than we hoped from the scrambled core." Taryn said. "But we couldn't save everyone."

"Bastion?" The Doctor asked. Picking up the cylindrical devices.

"He's there and he looks okay but I can't activate him, it would be cruel. He's designed to be part of a ship with sensors and a voice. It would frighten him, it would be like sensory deprivation." Taryn explained.

"I could probably come up with a holographic front end for his program." Reg suggested.

"Thank you, but that's not our priority." She smiled, "When we get back, I'll hold you to it though."

Reg was pleased she used the words 'when' and 'we'. Right now he needed all the hope he could get.

…

They were as ready as they would ever be and aboard the Bozeman. Reg was in guest quarters currently asleep, he had worked around the clock only snatching a few hours sleep here and there since they found the program. Taryn was so proud and pleased at what he had accomplished, even Dr Z had been impressed and said he couldn't have bettered it. With all the work they still hadn't found time to discuss the program Taryn had found but perhaps that was for the best. Her irritation had faded along with her jealousy over the version of herself with the up scaled bosom. The creation date on the program had been corrupted, but she knew he hadn't built it since they had become involved, he simply hadn't had time. Obviously he had created her after they met but there were so many details he couldn't have found out from her service record or the few interactions they had shared in the last year or so and it wasn't limited to a birthmark. Taryn never wore jewellery in uniform, yet the program was wearing T'Pandra's ring, one she was given following her death, on the only finger that it would fit her on. Taryn had her ears pierced, but not her lobes. Off duty she wore a ring through her tragus, next to her right cheek and a stud in her left upper ear. To her knowledge, Reg had never seen her out of uniform, and even on the day she visited home and Daystrom she hadn't worn jewellery yet the program had the same piercings in the same places. She may not be bothered on an emotional level, but she really wanted to know where he got his information from.

Data was deactivated on an anti-grav sled in front of her dressed in plain clothes, with the front of his clothing open. Taryn began to fasten it as Captain Bateson entered sickbay.

"What are you doing?" he asked indignantly.

"It's all part of the plan sir, and he doesn't have anything I haven't already seen." Taryn replied. "Although he's too coy to let me do this while he's conscious. He has a modesty subroutine."

"Do you really think this plan will work?" Bateson asked.

"Yes sir." she replied confidently.

"And Barclay?"

"He's more robust than he appears," she replied and finished fastening Data's clothing. "and far more capable than he's given credit for."

"Forgive me if I suspect that you're biased." he commented, "What will you do if it becomes apparent you're involved with him?"

Taryn smirked, she had Bateson pegged as perceptive when she first met him.

"I'm not going to keep it a secret, sir." He looked at her quizzically, "I'm going to lead Admiral Haftel to believe I seduced and manipulated him with my Orion wiles to get him to leave the Enterprise with me when I escaped on the Chekov with B-4."

"And will he believe that?" Bateson asked.

"You believe me capable of it sir." Taryn met his eyes with hers.

Bateson laughed candidly. "Touché Commander."

"May I speak freely sir?" she asked.

"You mean you haven't before now?" the burly man said with a snort, folded his arms and perched against the biobed nearby.

"Admiral Haftel and many like him look at my complexion and assume I have the sexual ethics of an alley cat on heat, then look at my ears and assume I have no feelings to be injured. Neither is the truth, but the Orion in me is more than willing to use the assumptions of others to my advantage if I need to. The Vulcan in me gives me the ability to hide physiological signs that I am lying and my humanity gives me my moral compass."

"And what is your moral compass telling you?" Bateson asked.

"That Haftel must be stopped and his activities investigated. That I will get this team out of the Annex when this is finished or die trying."

Bateson eyed her appraisingly. He was wondering if she was genuine, of that she was certain, but ultimately it didn't matter. It was the staff at the Annex she had to convince.

"Let's hope it won't come to that." Bateson smiled. "We'll be in orbit within thirty minutes. Your brother is making the final preparations to the Chekov and everything is on schedule. We have orders to leave orbit as soon as you've departed. You'll be on your own down there."

"We're aware of that sir." Taryn replied and turned as Reg entered the room.

"Captain, Commander." Barclay said in greeting.

"Mr Barclay." Bateson extended his hand. "Good luck."

"Thank you sir."

"May you continue to be misjudged Commander Prior." Bateson smiled and shook her hand. She thanked him with a smile and they both watched him leave the room.

"What did he mean by that?" Barclay asked, looking affronted.

"Believe it or not he's being nice." She smiled at him, "How did you sleep?"

"I missed you being there." Barclay forced a smile.

"I would have been if I didn't have things to do." she replied.

"Honestly? Only you've been…"

"We've both been busy." She smiled up at him, "We need to get going."

He grabbed the handle on the anti-grav sled and manoeuvred it into the corridor. Then stopped and turned to face her.

"I have to explain about Program 9. It's not what you think I…" he blurted. She grabbed the front of his uniform, pulled him down and kissed him.

"It doesn't matter." she whispered.

"It does, I know it does. You see there's a paint…" She silenced him with another kiss. "If I keep talking will you...?" He took her in his arms and returned her kiss then gazed into her eyes as their lips parted. "It doesn't matter. This is what matters." he said softly.

"Exactly." she whispered, "Now put me down, we have the Federation as we know it to save." He nodded and they headed for the main hangar.

"Can you take the helm? I'm really not a good pilot." she told him as they arrived in the main hangar where the delta flyer was prepped and waiting.

"Yes, if you want." he replied. "But I can't believe there's anything you aren't good at." They secured Data in the aft compartment and went through to the main deck.

"I've flirted or pheromoned my way out of five violations in the last year." she told him, "If I get caught again I'll have to bribe someone with a kidney and my first born child." she said as she took the Ops station at his left shoulder.

"I had a nightmare." Barclay said, "You asked how I slept, I was on the shuttle with Eden and Young and I saw the nacelle coming but I couldn't touch anything, my hand just passed through the console then I tried to wake them up, I couldn't touch them either and Young turned into you. And you were bleeding everywhere…"

"It's just a dream." she told him, "I know it's been preying on your mind. But Young wasn't a lovable buffoon or the hero he appeared to be. He dispersed five hundred sentient holograms piece by piece to try to prove a faulty premise. He was capable of cruelty you can't imagine and I hope you never see."

"Did you see it?" he asked.

"We have clearance to leave the hangar." she told him, "I saw one, I've wished I could unsee it ever since." She input her security code to get clearance through the Annex security screen.

"Taryn, if things go wrong down there…"

"Nothing is going to go wrong." she told him. "I have your back."

"I'm the goose that lays the mobile emitter. It's you that's vulnerable." he commented.

Taryn chose not to remind him that they cut the goose that laid the golden eggs open in the story to see if it had gold inside. "I think Data has the shortest straw. We get to stay conscious." Galor IV was a K-Class planet, inhospitable to human life. The annex itself was in effect a hole in the ground connected via a tube system to the Habitat Dome nearby. Beaming in was only possible in the residential area of the colony so all assets were brought into the Annex complex via shuttlecraft. She felt an almost overwhelming sense of dread at returning to this planet. The only good thing about it was the cat that had moved in with her and he was a serial rapist until she'd had him fixed. The Habitat Dome was overrun with blue furred or copper eyed kittens. "Okay, get your game face on." she said as much to herself as to Reg.

"I love you." he said looking over his shoulder at her.

"Daystrom Annex, this is Lieutenant Commander Prior requesting landing clearance." She winked at him and signed that she loved him too.

 _"_ _Commander Prior you are clear to enter the pipe."_

"Acknowledged."

Taryn was glad she wasn't the pilot. She hated the pipe. The doors slid open at ground level revealing a large tunnel that shot away at 45 degrees, on either side there were the tubes for the transit system that ferried staff between the complex and the living accommodation. Three of her recent flight violations had occurred in the pipe, one for speeding, one where she clipped the transit tube and one where she scraped the shuttle on the door on the way in. The fact they didn't end up on her record was a minor miracle. She really was an awful pilot but Reg was good, safety conscious maybe, but far from nervous. Mind you he'd probably logged more hours than your average flight instructor avoiding transporters over the years. The pipe reached a level three hundred metres below ground that resembled a hangar deck.

 _"_ _Shuttlecraft Chekov, please proceed to pad five."_

She recognised the pad number, it was the nearest one to the main entrance, it meant they were being fast-tracked into the complex.

"This is going to be quick." she muttered to him as they got out of their seats and the flyer was boarded.

Barclay was slammed into the floor face down with a knee between his shoulders and magnetic cuffed behind his back before being hauled to his feet and manhandled from the ship. Taryn walked behind them, her face impassive as she turned to see them unload Data on the anti-grav sled.

"Hey." she shouted as one of the henchmen grounded the sled taking it down the ramp. "Be careful with that." She knew to be careful with her pronouns at the Annex. It was a standing order, you weren't supposed to get attached to the assets. Two armed officers joined the four that were escorting the two men.

She went through security checks at a narrow gateway while Data and Reg were scanned. Then came the first hitch in the plan, they had changed the protocols and scanned her as well. The system chimed as the beam drew level with her navel and also her hips and she found herself surrounded by phaser rifles.

"What?" She smiled sweetly. "I got some new piercings on Earth." She eyed the most dominant looking guard. "It's a navel bar with a data crystal containing my great-grandmothers memories, she was a net girl. It's all I have to remember her by." She tilted her head and smiled, "Or is the other piercing the problem. It's in a rather… intimate place but I'd be happy to show it to you gentlemen."

"I'm reading small quantities of titanium, silver, beryllium and a memory crystal." a guard with a tricorder reported. "All inert."

"Okay Prior, no peep show today but leave the body jewellery at home tomorrow or we'll expect a pole dance."

She laughed playfully as she was waved through then the three of them entered a large turbolift along with the armed escort. She could see their guards exchanging raised eyebrows and smirks out of the corner of her eye.

"Level Eight." one of the guards clutching a phaser rifle stated. Taryn recognised it as the floor where some of the holography labs were. The doors opened and the two guards flanking Reg shoved him roughly into the corridor along with an armed guard.

"Level Nine." the other armed man said. "The Admiral is waiting to debrief you Commander."

"Thank you Lieutenant." Taryn smiled at the man. "What about the asset?"

"You're both going to Cybernetics Lab Alpha." the man told her. "The Admiral wants to see it."

The doors opened and they strode down the corridor, then took a left turn and entered the Cybernetics lab. Admiral Haftel's face beamed as he looked down at Data's still form, believing it to be B-4.

"Finally." He clapped his hands. "Good work Prior. Pity you couldn't bring everyone but…" he circled the sled, "this is excellent, and Barclay…" he grinned at her, "Masters can't get his emitter design to work so we really needed him. Was he difficult to convince?"

"Of course not sir." Taryn stated with a sly smile that hid the fact she wanted to bash the man's face in.

Haftel gave a dirty laugh, "From what I hear he's an easy mark, got led around by the dick by some Dabo girl, nearly blew Pathfinder out of the water. I expect he was happy as a dog with two dicks when you turned up. I bet you screwed the pathetic bastard to within an inch of his life you dirty little bitch."

" _Charming as ever_." she thought and kept up the smile, letting him draw his own conclusions always worked. He always concluded she was willing to throw herself on anyone's sword to complete a mission, or for any reason at all. Admittedly he wasn't far wrong in this case, but there was a first time for everything and she still wanted to deck the man and stamp on his knackers. He beckoned her over with a finger.

"I want you to see this," he said crossing the room. He pulled a sheet from what looked like a corpse on a table. "This is ECAO, Expendable Commissioned Android Officer. The Future of Starfleet."

"Who built it?" Taryn asked, already knowing the answer, it looked like Eden only younger and fitter but he still had the piggy eyes.

"Eden, what do you think?" Haftel said proudly.

"Does it work?" Taryn asked.

"I know you aren't the guy's biggest fan but he's a capable cyberneticist." Haftel said defensively, "It will work once you transfer Data's matrix for us."

Taryn grabbed a tricorder and scanned the android. She could have laughed. She'd expected to have to sabotage him but it was clear from even the most cursory of examinations that The Future of Starfleet would never work with Data's matrix, or one belonging to any Soong-type for that matter. They should have got Ruxia to build it, at least it would have been a challenge to discredit. Even the power unit was inadequate to support the neural net. She shook her head and handed the tricorder to the Admiral.

"Okay, so there are some kinks to iron out." the Admiral said.

"Kinks sir?" Taryn said picking up another scanning device, "To make this work it will need a complete redesign and rebuild. The net is depolarising because the power unit isn't giving it enough juice. It's unstable now and it's not even processing anything. It'll cascade before it opens it's eyes and says hello. Has anyone actually run a diagnostic on this thing? Because the memory unit isn't interfacing with the neural net properly."

"Let me see." Haftel snatched the device from her and pushed her aside roughly. He rapidly confirmed her findings and threw the scanner across the room followed by the tricorder then shoved The Future of Starfleet onto the floor. "If Eden weren't dead I would track him down and stick my foot so far up his ass it would come out of his mouth." He leaned on the bench glowering. "Okay, we'll move straight to phase two. Get you in the lab with Masters and Barclay, you can prepare the matrix for ECHO. You're going to love ECHO, it's a holographic version of this project. You might even get the pair of them to work faster if you're there waggling your ass at them. Spark some rivalry eh!"

Taryn was worried, this was all too easy. Haftel's filthy mind and Eden's incompetence was doing the hard work for her. Well, the less convincing she had to do the more plausible her performance would be. She followed the anti-grav back to the turbolift in silence as they headed for Level Eight. Now this would be more of a challenge. She had to find a way to get her ex-boyfriend Trey out of the picture without upsetting Reg.

 _Author's Note_

Thank you to everyone who has commented so far, I hope you are still enjoying the story. The sequel is coming together well, it picks up were this one will ended and (I hope) has drama, angst, romance, eroticism and weird things happening on holo-grids of course. It's already longer than this story but I'm aiming for another 25 chapter story plus prologue and epilogue.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

Reg had thought the officers that snatched him from Daystrom had been rough but they had a lot to learn compared to the guards at the Annex. Although thankfully no-one tried to yank his testicles off while searching him this time. He nearly lost it when the alarm sounded and Taryn was surrounded by men with rifles, especially when she threatened to flash her foo-foo at them. Heaven knows what would have happened if they'd called her bluff, but at least he may have got one last look before they saw through the plan and killed them both.

He gave her a glance as they shoved him from the turbolift. A final longing look that he both meant and was part of the plan. He was the jilted lover, betrayed and turned over by a good little minion doing her job to the letter. She wasn't looking at him, she didn't twitch as much as a muscle since the security team boarded the flyer. Just as well he trusted her implicitly, she could play the ice maiden to a T.

No, she wouldn't? She couldn't be a double agent. It can't have all been part of her plan. He knew she was devious and had a will of iron, but… Dear God this was real, he was in six hundred metre hole in the ground giving the axis of evil exactly what they needed to take over every ship in the fleet.

"Is there a problem?" Trey asked, peering over Barclay's shoulder.

To add insult to injury he was expected to work with an ejaculating penis with an engineer attached and the man was literally breathing down his neck, demanding to know why the emitter based on the theoretical model didn't work. He knew exactly why it didn't work, he'd realised it while working on Data at Daystrom, desperately trying to think of something interesting to say to the lovely creature standing opposite with her adorable fingers in the chest cavity of an android. A woman who made his heart ache and sing in equal measures that he now realised had sold him up the river. He'd made a mistake, a very simple one. A misplaced variable in the simulation made the model work, but it never would in reality. They may have taken his research, his notes and everything from his lab that wasn't bolted down as well as a few things that were but they left him with his mind and time to think. The way to make the emitter work with technology five hundred years less advanced had come to him, as most brilliant ideas do, while sitting on the toilet two days after he'd realised his mistake, but it required a radical rethink and a change of direction.

"Apart from the fact it won't work?" Barclay asked, trying his utmost to mask the fact he felt much as Vortigon must have when Taryn sidled up to him and yanked his heart from his chest.

The door opened and Data was wheeled in and transferred to a table by two men with an armed escort. Taryn followed and smiled warmly at Trey.

"I wasn't expecting you yet." Trey smiled, "I thought you were doing the android transfer first."

"Change of plan." Taryn said, "Haftel wants me to start converting the matrix." She popped open the temporal panel on Data's head and plugged in an optronic cable and ran it to a piece of equipment nearby that Barclay didn't recognise and plugged it in.

"So this is B-4." Trey looked at the android appraisingly, "Soong was one weird looking guy."

Considering Trey looked like a garden gnome who'd had a shave Reg felt this was a little rich, and he certainly didn't like the way Trey had moved behind Taryn and was pressing against her under the pretext of looking at what she was doing. The man had serious boundary issues and what really hurt was Taryn was flirting with the bastard in front of him. Well screw her, no way was he giving them a mobile emitter, they could kill him for all he cared.

"You know, I'm really sorry about that thing with Debbie. She meant nothing to me." He stroked the tail of her plaited hair with a finger, dangerously close to her breast. "I really missed you while you were away." Trey added as Taryn turned and rummaged in a drawer for a tool.

"Aw, I missed you too." She smiled up at him as she bent over to check a lower drawer.

"So, maybe dinner later?" Trey suggested, watching her alter the settings on the electro-dynamic probe she had found.

She stopped and gazed at him, the way she gazed at Reg less than an hour ago after they had kissed. She beckoned him closer with her finger in a way that was both teasing and seductive. He leaned in to kiss her

"Go fuck yourself Trey, I've found someone ten times the man you are." she said icily and pressed the probe to the side of his neck while activating it. "Are you okay? They didn't rough you up too badly did they?" Taryn asked, stepping over the man who was twitching on the floor as she dashed to the table and started opening Data's clothes. "He won't be out for long. Reg?" she clicked her fingers in front of his face. "Mission Ops to Commander Barclay, please respond."

Reg was stunned and felt more than a little guilty for doubting her. She muttered an apology to Data as she pressed his perineum, or at least the android equivalent and his pelvic assembly rocked forward to reveal a cavity. She pulled out a cylindrical memory storage unit and handed it to Reg, who activated it, downloading the hologram to the Annex computer system while Taryn opened her uniform and pulled a data crystal from her navel and removed a small device that was taped to the outside of her panties. She handed them to Reg and fastened her uniform.

"Computer, is the download complete?" he asked.

 _"_ _Affirmative."_

Reg drew a deep breath, looked at Taryn and activated the memory unit.

A copper skinned, eight foot being appeared beside them.

"What would you have me do?" Vortigon Mark II asked with a low growl, his horns were different to the being they had faced on the Bastion. They were the horns of a ram that curled on either side of his head.

"Find your brothers, spread the program upgrade." Reg replied and the creature evaporated in smoke. "Taryn, how many Vortigons are there in the Annex computer? You said you'd only faced a few of them." he asked as she replaced the portable memory, closed Data's pelvis and adjusted his clothing. She looked a little guilty.

"Not…exactly a few." she replied. "More like a few hundred." she admitted. "They tend to respawn if they aren't removed properly and most system engineers thought they knew better than I did and wouldn't follow the protocol. So we ended up with three hundred and eighty-six, seven with this one."

Reg swore, it wasn't something he did often. "Are you… insane? We just released an army of demons in a Federation research facility."

"I know." Taryn grinned, then turned as Trey began to rouse.

"Wha… wha the?" Trey burbled, with drool dripping from his chin.

"Trey?" Taryn asked, but made no effort to help him. "You walked into the probe I was holding, you frigging idiot."

"Did, did you say you'd have dinner with me?" Trey slurred, grinning.

"No, I'm involved with someone." she replied and looked fondly at Reg.

"What him?" Trey asked, trying to force his eyes to focus.

Reg was making himself busy fitting the components Taryn had sneaked into the complex to the prototype mobile emitter and reconfiguring some of the circuitry. The items would have set off the scanners had they hid them in Data just the same as they did on Taryn and would have led the guards to find the memory unit hidden where his pelvic components used to be. They had sneaked the final pieces in as there was no way he was going to fabricate them in the complex and risk them finding out how to make more emitters and they had no intention of leaving the working prototype behind. If they couldn't escape they planned to destroy it.

"Yes me." Reg replied proudly and checked the completed emitter with a probe. "This is working fine now, perhaps if you'd assembled it properly in the first place…" he added as an additional, although unjustified insult. "I just need a matrix."

"The transfer will take a while." Taryn said, taking a seat at the counter next to Reg. "Perhaps you could get us some tea Trey?" She snorted. "Tea tray." she elbowed Reg and they both giggled. "I'll have a fennel tea please."

"Coffee please." Reg said.

Trey staggered from the room, still stunned from the shock to his neck, or on hearing that Taryn was involved with Barclay, Reg was uncertain which and didn't really care.

"That was so mean." Reg giggled, "Is he going to be okay?"

"He'll be fine in an hour or so." Taryn replied, "Two at the most. I didn't jolt him that hard. Nothing like the shock I got when I caught him with Debbie in that cupboard." she said, standing up and approaching Data on the table. "It was like a pug chewing a cocktail sausage. Something else from this place I wish I could unsee." She reached under Data and activated him. He sat bolt upright and looked around the room. "We're still downloading the matrix. Vortigon is deployed, we have a working mobile emitter and I've temporarily turned the Annex' resident holography star into a burbling idiot."

Data nodded, "Any word on the others?"

…

The scanning unit in the aft section of the Chekov slid open and Geoffrey Prior sat up. He swung his legs from the biobed and stretched them, he wasn't a man used to keeping still. He activated The Doctor's mobile emitter.

"Are we in?" The Doctor asked.

"We're in the hangar." Geoff replied. "But they moved us from the original landing pad."

"And the others?"

"I think Taz' secret package set off the scanners but it died down quickly. She must have talked her way out of it." He stood and examined the weapons locker, it was empty, the guards had stripped it. They had no doubt taken the sidearms from the consoles as well but it was worth checking.

"No phasers." The Doctor stated, "Isn't that going to be a problem?"

"Nah, if I need one I'll take one." Geoff winked at him. "It'll be fine."

Geoff activated the ops station to locate the biosignatures of the guards in the hangar. He spent a moment watching their patrol pattern. Then headed to the rear of the ship and opened the hatch. He watched as the nearest guard turned and walked away from him then made his move. He stealthily approached the officer and put him in a vascular choke hold from behind. He rapidly lost consciousness, so quickly Geoff was able to catch the man's phaser rifle before it clattered to the floor. He adjusted his grip and dragged the man back to the Chekov, where they loaded him into the medical scanner.

"So you're an Aide at Starfleet Command?" The Doctor asked as he activated the scanner. "And I'm the Dohlman of Elas." he added sarcastically. "You were right, this man has a transponder. They don't use the security protocols on guards."

Geoff smiled self-effacingly and ran a hand through his short dark curls.

"It would slow their deployment in the event of a breach, and the transponders would allow guards to run through force fields during lock down if they're set up properly. It makes sense really, I've seen it before."

"I won't ask where, you'll probably have to delete me." The Doctor replied archly. The scan completed and The Doctor made some adjustments to his mobile-emitter. In seconds he resembled the guard. Geoff scanned the man's combadge with a tricorder.

"Your name is Dave Carter." he told the Doctor and handed him the combadge. "I'll go and get another one."

"I'll remove the transponder." The Doctor told him.

Within minutes Geoffrey was wearing a yellow collar and The Doctor was injecting a transponder into his inner forearm. In turn he watched The Doctor place the first man's transponder within his forearm through the force field that created his outer skin.

"Ready?" Geoff asked and pulled a silk thin mask over his head. He turned back his outer sleeve and pressed a button on a device attached to the arm of his yellow jersey. He now looked like the second guard, although he was shorter by four inches. Not much he could do about that however. He wasn't the shortest Prior male, Emlyn held that distinction but his other brothers and father were all six foot or over. Even Tegan and Bronwyn were both around five feet ten inches. Geoff was of average height and average build all of which were factors in his career. He wasn't supposed to stand out in a crowd.

The two men stepped calmly from the Chekov, closed the hatch and walked towards the entrance chatting about hoverball, were waved through by the security team at the gate and passed through the scanners without incident. They stepped into the turbolift and headed to Level Ten as planned.

…

"You activated him?" Trey asked as he returned with a tray with drinks on it, not easy as his hands were still shaking from the jolt to the neck.

"There was a hiccup in the transfer, it wouldn't work with him inert." Taryn explained. "B-4, this is Trey Masters, he's working with us today."

"Hello Trey." Data replied blankly.

"How much does it understand?" Trey asked, putting down the drinks and circling the chair Data was sat on.

Taryn thought it was entirely possible the real B-4 had a higher IQ than Trey before she'd started working with him, he certainly had more compassion and significantly better manners.

"Hard to say." Taryn replied distractedly, busy working at a computer terminal nearby. She suddenly laughed and said "Barclay, look at this image my brother sent." He walked behind her and read over her shoulder as she pointed to a memo and typed 'laugh' on the screen in text. He sniggered and returned to watching the matrix as it flickered on the screen, within the transfer unit was a clear dome that would fit in your palm, if your hands were bigger than Taryn's, and inside a purple crystalline structure was forming. The memory system designed by Lucy Sheridan, a new form of active memory.

"DO… YOU… UNDERSTAND… WHAT… I… AM… SAYING?" Trey asked Data.

Taryn rubbed her forehead and looked over at Reg who was struggling to keep a straight face, she knew this wasn't the jolt, she'd seen him do this with other life-forms she had liaised with him about. It was his standard way of assessing intelligence which also extended to alien waiters.

"YES." Data replied at the same volume and tone. "I… UNDERSTAND… WHAT… YOU…ARE…SAYING."

"CAN… YOU… LIFT…YOUR…ARM?" Trey asked, waving his arm about.

Data opened his mouth to respond, but Taryn interrupted.

"For God's sake Trey. He's not hard of hearing, stop playing Simon Says and make yourself useful." she held out a padd, "Go to stores and pick these up."

"Okay." he said, looking at the list. "I won't be long." He shot Reg a nasty look as he left the lab.

"You called me 'he'." Data warned her once he had left.

"How long is he likely to be?" Reg asked.

"Quite a while, I know the staff down in stores and the first item on the list is 'A Long Stand'" she grinned. "The second is a left handed hyperspanner and so on."

"You didn't." Reg said in disbelief. "That's the oldest engineering joke in the book." he laughed.

"I do not get it." Data said.

"They leave you waiting there for ages and then say, 'Okay, you've been standing long enough' and send you back empty handed. It's been used for centuries on Cadets and apprentices before that." Reg explained. "I'm amazed he fell for it."

"Ah, I was subject to similar pranks as a Cadet."

"I didn't get pranked at the Academy, I think they all thought I might snap and go on a killing spree." Barclay said. "I got my emotional scars at school and at home"

"I never went to school." Data pointed out.

"I wasn't a victim of pranks either but I spent the whole time at school, Daystrom and the Academy being called Short-Snot, Bogie, Kermit, Wicked Witch, She-Hulk, Yoda and Greenie instead. But you may like to know we've solved the riddle of the Odyssey. I found a memo on the system."

Data giggled, "Yoda. That is funny." he composed himself, "Sorry, the Odyssey?"

"It was an AI, a copy of the prototype ECH in fact. But it didn't stop the fleeing ships because the primary assets weren't in custody yet. As soon as they were it was going to kill everyone else and destroy all the evidence and the assets would disappear, presumed dead and no crew would be there to witness anything." she explained.

"We are the primary assets." Reg continued, "The three of us and we stayed on the Bastion until the Odyssey was destroyed so the attack never shifted focus."

"And now they have us." Data replied.

"Well, I don't know about you two but I don't plan on disappearing quietly." Taryn said. "How far along is the matrix?"

"Around sixty percent." Reg replied.

"Do you believe it will convert to a holographic construct successfully?" Data asked.

"I'm not sure, I'd need to see a matrix scan to be certain." Reg told him.

"That may be a problem." Taryn responded.

"We shipped one here, you must have one." Reg argued.

"Yes, but it has… issues." she replied guiltily.

"What kind of issues?" Data asked.

"It doesn't work. I always used the one on the Bastion." She turned back to the monitor and continued checking recent memos and communiques. She really didn't want to discuss this. Least of all with Reg.

"Taryn," Reg said with a warning tone, "did you blow up one of only four Holotronic Matrix Scanners that I painstakingly built with the sweat of my…?"

"I know, with the sweat of your bollocks." she interrupted angrily. "I didn't blow it up, exactly." She looked up at him, "Haftel refused my request to let you install it because…"

"Because of Leosa." Barclay realised. "He decided I was a security risk."

"He wouldn't let me install it either, he got the dynamic duo of Masters and Young to fit it. He'd have been better off sending Abbott and Costello."

"Who?" Reg asked.

"You've heard of the Marx brothers, but you don't know who Abbott and Costello are? Just as well I didn't say the Chuckle Brothers." She shook her head. "Anyway the first time I powered it up there was a grinding noise, like a shuttle scraping a marker buoy and now all it does is click. The systems engineers we have here won't touch it because it's too specialist and I haven't had a chance to look at it yet."

"Like a ticking, like an old clock?" Reg asked, gesticulating with his hands. She always found the way he never knew where to put his hands when he spoke sweet. It made her want to make a few suggestions. "I can fix that. I'll need access to a replicator but…"

Taryn kissed his cheek, "You're a hero. Do you know that?" she smiled, "But I'm going to need clearance and an armed guard to take you to the lab where it's kept. They'll want to cuff you again."

"He is returning." Data warned.

"Hysterical Prior, very funny." Trey shouted, threw the padd at Taryn, which she dodged and shaped up to hit her.

"Hey." Barclay said and stepped in front of her. "Back off Lieutenant."

"I get it, you've found a big dopey basket case of a man to fight your battles for you." he snorted, "You're a joke Barclay, you're pathetic and you don't even have the balls to hit me." He pushed Reg in the chest, goading him. "It's a miracle you made it out of the Lieutenant grades. You actually think you're man enough for her?" he laughed. "You should stick to screwing holograms, you can program them to overlook the fact you're a hopeless wreck who should have been busted out of Starfleet years ago…"

It took quite a lot for Taryn to lose her temper. People often thought that when she raised her voice that was her temper showing, it wasn't. Few knew the true depths of the emotions she was capable of, she wasn't even certain herself. Three years of frustration and repressed anger at being sequestered on Galor IV boiled to the surface in an instant and she clenched her fists tight. Every horror she had been forced to watch burned behind her eyes, every eroded liberty and every injustice. She trembled with the strain of holding it back and tried to draw strength from the knowledge that the man she loved wasn't letting this little prick goad him into a fight. Trey was a bully, a cruel, nasty little man who always knew what buttons to push and insulted the intelligence of beings he wasn't fit to clean the shoes of. Something she only discovered after he coerced her into bed. She was repulsed by him and revolted at the memory of his touch. She despised Haftel and she detested this abhorrent God forsaken shithole of a planet.

No, she wasn't going to let it happen again, she had to hold back this tide of emotion or she would be lost in it. She struggled to retain her focus and calm her breathing which hissed from her nostrils. She closed her eyes and envisaged a sea, it spread out in all directions, wild, thrashing, turbulent and tempestuous, she rocked her first two fingers slowly on a pressure point on her palm, endeavouring to calm the tempest but it was raging out of control. She imagined T'Pandra's calm face, her voice, the ordered logic of her mind when they had melded, desperate to find some calm in the storm that raged in her mind but the face shattered like glass. She felt time slow down to a crawl and all she knew was rage, pure rendered fury and the absolute knowledge that if Trey didn't shut his mouth she was going to shut it for him.

"What was it? A pity fuck? I bet you couldn't even get it up." Trey laughed.

She stepped around Reg and rammed her fist into Trey's cheek and the other into his ribs. He staggered and she hit him in the face again, and again then aimed a kick to his groin before he crumpled to the floor and she continued to kick him in the stomach, the chest anywhere her foot would connect while shouting expletives and insults. She felt an arm around her waist as Reg hauled her off him, still kicking and screaming.

…

Reg knew the plan was to keep Trey as out of the way as possible but he really hadn't expected this turn of events. He was aware of what she was capable of, The Doctor had told him what she had done to Eden, but he'd described the injuries as almost surgical in their precision, designed to incapacitate the man that was assaulting her with a knife in his hand. What he'd just witnessed was a frenzied attack, totally out of control. She had gone literally berserk and he was certain she'd have kept kicking till she saw brains if he hadn't grabbed her. She moved faster than he'd thought possible, she'd given him the old one two and got in two more punches and a boot to the love spuds that had made Reg's eyes water with sympathy while the man was in the process of falling to the floor.

What surprised him was he didn't feel afraid. He was extremely glad she was on their side and turned the decision he'd made on the Bastion never to piss her off into a solemn vow. But who was he to talk? He'd decked a Zakdorn over an offhand comment about her ears. Her mixed heritage meant they were more subtle, less pronounced than Vulcan ears but they were exquisitely delicate. Even now when he had intimate knowledge of her physical charms he still found the elegant elfin curve of her ears to be the most delectable thing about her.

"Taryn. Taryn calm down." Barclay said, with one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders. "I think you got him." She was strong, at least as strong as him if not stronger and still struggling, but she wasn't heavy and his height advantage enabled him to hold her off the ground. "Okay, how do we explain this?" he asked Data who was stood at the furthest extent of the lead attached to his head. They both looked at the unconscious, but thankfully still breathing Lieutenant Masters.

"I do not know, but we should perhaps address the fact she is glowing." Data suggested.

"She's what?" Reg asked and looked down at the struggling woman in his arms. She was glowing, literally incandescent with rage. "Is that normal?"

"No, can you bring her closer." Data requested and grabbed a tricorder from the counter. "It is, some kind of bioluminescence. A chemical reaction in her skin pigmentation. She does not appear to be harmed by it in any way."

"The chlorophyll?" Reg asked. "Is this an Orion thing?" He noticed she was starting to calm down so he adjusted his grip slightly, worried he may be hurting her.

"Not that I am aware of." Data stated.

"Oh God," Taryn stated, looking at her hands that were luminous green. "I lost my temper didn't I?" She started to cry. "I released my pheromones."

"Has this happened before?" Data asked.

"Only once." she wept, "I beat the crap out of the school bully when I was seven and got expelled from school." She burbled with tears and snot dripping from her nose and chin. "I didn't want to come back here, I never wanted to come back. I hate it." Reg held her against him making soothing noises for several minutes. She had gone to pieces and was sobbing inconsolably into his chest. Even Data was moved to place his hand on her back to try and comfort her, shared a worried look with Reg and shrugged. She was key to this mission. They needed her to take point.

"Okay, we need you to hold it together and come up with a plan." Reg whispered, "Because we can't think of anything and this is your turf." She nodded and her breathing began to settle.

"Erm, right, give me a minute." she said, wiped her nose on her sleeve and went quiet for around ten seconds. "Hit me." she said turning to Reg, "I need a real shiner, go for it."

"What? No." he protested. "I'm not going to hit you."

"If we say that Trey hit me, which he would have if you hadn't stopped him, we can say B-4 defended me. They won't care, they plan to strip him down anyway. We'll get away with it, I don't have a mark on my hands, look." her hands were undamaged and her radiance was starting to fade. "It's a hormone reaction, I have a pair of dormant human adrenal glands that only work when I get really angry and Orion skin isn't supposed to go with adrenalin." She smiled weakly. "We have to make this look good or we're sunk."

"She is right." Data said. "I will do it."

"I'm not happy about that either." Barclay protested, "You could kill her."

"I will be careful." Data said as she turned towards him. It was quick and without warning, she staggered for a moment and instinctively raised her hand to her eye. Data grasped her elbow and turned her to look at her face and winced. "I am sorry." he whispered.

"I'm fine." she replied and turned to Reg with a smile. Her eye was already starting to swell. "I'll call security."

They didn't just get security, Haftel himself turned up to see what the fuss was about.

"I believe your instructions were to spark some rivalry sir." Taryn said, "It's hardly my fault that Masters lost it and thumped me." She held a cold pack to her eye.

"What I don't understand is why is the android activated?" Haftel asked, stepping aside for the medical team to remove Masters.

"No one has transferred a Soong-type matrix to crystalline memory before sir." Taryn explained, "There were some unexplained pauses in the transfer that I resolved by activating the asset. You've seen the original scan, separating Data's part of the matrix is a painstaking process and the need to make adjustments as we go along is to be expected."

"Is this thing dangerous?" Haftel asked, pointing at Data who sat with an innocent expression on his face. "Should we put it in restraint?"

"I had to earn its trust at Daystrom and it defended me. It's as simple as that. There's no danger sir."

"How far along are we?" Haftel demanded.

"There's another hour or so of the transfer to run. Then we need a matrix scan of the crystalline module to be certain the conversion will be successful. Commander Barclay has agreed to work on the Holotronic Matrix Scanner, but he will need to replicate some components."

"Barclay, you can fix this scanner of yours?" Haftel barked and fixed Reg with a steely expression that was disturbing.

"I…I believe so sir." Reg replied, "I've seen the problem Commander Prior d…describes on the unit at Daystrom." Reg fidgeted with his hands, "It's a minor fault but it's… a little t...tricky to repair."

"How long?"

"No more than two hours, sir." Reg said.

Haftel turned away without responding to Reg and returned his attention to Prior. "Can the two of you get the ECHO up and running without Masters?" he asked.

"Yes sir" she replied.

"I'll relocate you to the lab with the scanner, but no playing patty cake with this screwball." Haftel ordered pointing at Barclay then turned to walk away. A medic approached Taryn to look at her eye. "Leave her eye," he said coldly, "maybe it'll teach her not to be so slutty in future." He strode toward the door, "I expect to be there for the first activation of ECHO. I want my face to be the first thing it sees."

"Of course sir." Taryn replied and watched him leave.

Reg exhaled and stepped towards Taryn once they were alone. He lifted the hand that was holding the cold compress and winced. Her eye was nearly swollen shut. He cast a look at Data then back at her.

"Does he always talk to you that way?" Reg asked.

"Actually, that was positively restrained." Taryn replied and explored her eye with her fingers, wincing.

"We have to stop him." Data said coldly.

"We will stop him." Taryn replied. "Non-essential staff leave the complex in just over two hours and will be out of harm's way and he won't leave till he sees his hologram. We've hopefully bought enough time for the other team to finish before all hell breaks loose."

…

"Vortigon Mark II is deployed and spreading." Geoffrey grinned looking up from the terminal. "They got in okay." he told The Doctor. "Let's hope Taryn opened the file in her post to interact with our demon friends and opened the window in system security, I'm starting the upload."

"How long will it take?" The Doctor asked.

"Hopefully it will be done before it all kicks off. If not we'll have to go with what we have." Geoffrey told him. "Let's get moving."

They headed back to the turbolift and requested Level Six. At Level Eight the doors opened and Taryn entered with Data attached to a machine he carried in his arms by a lead from his head, Barclay cuffed behind his back and six guards all armed with phaser rifles.

"Level Four." Taryn requested and looked at the panel from Data's head and the prototype mobile emitter which was twice the size of The Doctor's that she held in her hands. He couldn't really believe it would work. Five hundred years was a long time in terms of technology but Reg had told him he had given up on duplicating it and found a way to do the same thing with the technology available. He really was clever, scary clever in the same way Taryn was. Geoffrey knew he wasn't clever, he was observant and highly trained, not the same thing at all but he was good at his job. It was a pity he couldn't tell anyone about it although he knew Taryn and their father suspected, but knew better than to ask.

That was the life when you worked for The Department of Temporal Investigations. You worked with a different face, a fake name that was an anagram from 20th and 21st century science fiction and the work wasn't restricted to interviewing those who had made incursions to the timeline, accidental or otherwise. They often had to infiltrate and intervene, much as he was doing now. He'd actually met Commander La Forge, Dr Crusher and Captain Picard before, as well as Data aside from their near collision at the garden gate, although they would never have recognised him. His first case had been their unauthorised jaunt to 1893, he was a rookie at the time, only a year out of the academy and during their interviews had been amazed they hadn't done more damage to the timeline. But ultimately the Devidian threat was so great the incursion was justified and it saved the department from staging their own intervention.

The more he thought about it he was surprised the Department hadn't seized the mobile emitter from The Doctor, let alone ignored the fact someone with Reg's intelligence was working on duplicating it. But they must have their reasons and not everything was within his security level. For all he knew Barclay invented the thing in the first place and the 29th century model was based on his design. Timelines had a funny way of resolving themselves, some things were simply meant to be. Ironically this job had taught him to believe in fate.

Geoffrey could clearly see his sister had a black eye. He wondered what had happened, someone had clearly given her a smack but knowing her she asked for it. She looked radiant, glowing in a way only someone who knew her well would notice. Not in the 'I'm in love and having great sex' kind of way that he had never witnessed until Barclay appeared on the scene, in the 'I just got my arse kicked out of school' way he remembered from their childhood. She'd lost her rag and someone had got a good hiding, of that he was certain. Well, thankfully it wasn't Reg, although it was obvious something had gone a little pear-shaped between them in the last few days. He hoped they'd work it out, they both deserved to be happy and it was obvious they'd be happiest together. The guards with them looked uninjured, and they weren't guarding her so whoever it was she'd clearly got away with it.

The doors opened at Level Thirteen and The Doctor and he stepped out.

"Did I tell you about my sister's wedding?" Geoff asked The Doctor disguising his accent, "They served the best shrimp I've ever tasted." he said before the doors closed.

Author's note

I do not own Kermit from The Muppets, the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz, She-Hulk the Marvel superhero or Yoda from Star Wars. Nor do I own Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers or the Chuckle Brothers.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

Data had been pleased to see Taryn had calmed down significantly and atmosphere between his friends had improved since they left the Enterprise although he hadn't worried from the point of view of the mission. They had continued to work well together despite their differences. He knew what the argument was about, Geordi had explained it to him although at first he didn't really understand. He understood that Taryn had found a hologram of herself that Barclay had created in the Bastion's memory core, he'd even looked at it. It was a hologram of Taryn with a 9.837% scale increase, reconfigured gluteal musculature, a voice an octave higher, an accent that hailed from San Francisco and she had a significantly lower intelligence and educative level. What was odd was that Geordi had insisted this program was first created when Barclay was eighteen and a student at Daystrom, something the corruption in the file system prevented him from confirming. Geordi had also told him that the image was created from a high resolution scan of a 19th century painting, something Data doubted but he had certainly heard stories more far-fetched during his service with Starfleet. Once Geordi had convinced him this was not an elaborate practical joke concocted by his three friends and had seen Barclay's devastated expression, he had seen his Cyrano de Bergerac the man was no Olivier, this was clearly no prank, Data agreed to help.

It was no easy task, tracking down the provenance of a five hundred year old painting by an unnamed artist but luck had played a role. The Dryad of Windspirit Glade or _Driada na polanie ducha wiatru_ was in Poland in 1939 and had been seized by the occupying German forces where it disappeared, only to reappear in an auction with three other paintings in 2001 and was subject to a legal dispute from the estate of the original owners.

Data understood how humans recognised faces, it was not a precise science. As a species they saw faces in clouds, swirls in the surface of a cup of coffee, patterns in shifting sand and carbon on burnt toast. It was something keyed in to primal human neurology. He was expecting to find some similarity in feature position, a familiar crooked smile, a look in the paintings eyes.

He and Geordi had sat in silence for 2 minutes 27.48 seconds when the image appeared on screen.

There could be no argument, it was her. The computer had confirmed a 99.7% match to the image on her service record, something impossible from a painting unless… It was one of his paintings.

He examined it as closely as he could from the image and x-ray that was in the court records. The brush strokes, the use of colour, the angle of the light on the trees. He was 94.713% certain he had painted this picture himself, or at least he would paint it at some point in the future, or the past. The carbon dating performed on the canvas and paint confirmed it dated from the 19th century.

He needed to see the original, of that he was certain and did not mention what he had realised to Geordi. There were wider ramifications and implications from this painting and they all needed to keep their minds on the matter at hand.

Geordi had shared the image with Barclay before he had left the Enterprise and they had left the matter there, but Data knew that would not be the end of it.

Everything was on schedule so far, Geoffrey Prior and The Doctor had reached Level Six and would be surveying the artificial life-forms imprisoned there and the information gathered would be stored in The Doctor's matrix. Taryn was aware of a number of beings held off the books so this information would be crucial to the investigation. The matrix transfer had finished and the preliminary checks on the crystalline matrix looked promising and Data was currently searching the files the Annex held on his family. It was intriguing reading, they knew things that were certainly not in the public domain and were even aware of many of Lore's activities while he was at large. Taryn and Barclay were finishing the repairs to the scanner. They worked well together, the only time he had seen Reg look so content and calm was when he had assured Data the pregnant Spot was safe in his hands. Unfortunately Barclay had turned into an arachnid and spot into a lizard but the best laid plans… The litter survived and all was well in the end although he bore a grudge against Lieutenant Marshall's tom cat for quite some time following the genetic scan on the kittens.

"We're ready for the scan." Taryn smiled at him and took the ellipsoid globe to the Holotronic Imaging Scanner, connected it and Barclay activated the device. It was the first time Data had seen the machine operating from the outside and it was something of a disappointment. When connected to him it felt like cool honey pouring through his neural net, at least, that was the closest analogy he could find. It was an unusual but not an altogether unpleasant experience. His description had intrigued Taryn and she had speculated on the effect the scanner would have on a net-girl, a female who hired out her mind for exploration via an implanted dataport, a cyber call girl. They had debated the effects on a humanoid brain at some length before determining it was probably too dangerous to explore beyond the theoretical.

It took only a few minutes for the scan to complete. The time consuming part was the rendering of the four dimensional image that was as close to a DNA scan as artificial life could get.

"This isn't going to take two hours." Barclay said looking at the process from his terminal. "Probably less than one."

"Is that a bad sign?" Taryn asked as she placed her hand on his back and looked at the screen.

"Not given the circumstances." he smiled at her and turned to Data, "Come and look."

Data was reluctant, if there was something horribly wrong with what they had transferred he didn't wish to know. Taryn also beckoned him with a tilt of her head and a smile.

His lips parted slightly as he saw the matrix form node by node on the screen into an intricate helix.

"It looks…" Data began,

"The word you're looking for is 'perfect'." Taryn smiled.

"I'd have said 'exquisite'." Barclay added. "This code is begging to be transferred into a hologram. I should have thought of it earlier." he cast his eyes at Data, "I'm sorry I didn't."

"It wouldn't have worked before now." Taryn said. "We didn't have the technology." She was unconsciously mimicking Barclay's pose of one arm across her chest, one hand to her mouth. He'd noticed that mannerism in them both separately of course but he found it amusing that the pair of them were rapidly evolving into a symbiotic entity and they were completely unaware of it. He'd seen it in other couples and had often wondered if he was capable of it himself, it was something he would like to experience. There was a lot he'd like to experience, a relationship, a family. A fraction of what the unlikely couple he was currently with had found would be enough. They seemed to have an abundance of love.

…

"How is the data upload going?" Picard asked from the command chair. The Enterprise was currently hiding in an asteroid belt in the Galor system with the signal being transferred by a cloaked relay drone just within comms range.

"It's going well sir." La Forge replied from the engineering station.

"There may be a problem in terms of size." Seven of Nine reported from the Ops station. "I believe the amount of data in the transfer is significantly larger than the Enterprise computer."

"We need another ship." Janeway commented. "Contact the Bozeman and tell Bateson to get back here. I'm countermanding their orders."

"Even with the Bozeman there will not be sufficient space. The Annex is not limited to research into artificial life, the data we have received includes information on weapons development, armaments, biological weaponry, a number of alien artefacts that are being studied…" Seven of Nine advised them.

"Merde." Picard muttered under his breath. "We just stumbled upon a security hornet's nest." he said to Janeway. "Time to call in one last favour." Picard rose and headed to his ready room.

…

It was the big moment, they were ready to activate the ECHO. Haftel was present, flanked by two security men, a smug, self-satisfied grin on his face that made Barclay feel faintly sick. The man was an abomination and he loathed the thought of what he had put Taryn through in the last three years let alone what he had sanctioned during his time at the Annex. He knew Data was nervous, although he doubted he would admit it, even to himself. Data was facing a man who had caused the death of his child and Reg didn't even want to imagine what that felt like. The android was sitting in the corner like a naughty child, a bland benevolent smile on his lips, Haftel had his back to him, busy watching as Taryn assisted in the final checks Reg was making to both the matrix and the mobile emitter. He would have liked more bench tests, he would have liked to test the emitter on a tried matrix that wasn't as important as the one currently installed, but they had run out of time and now was the moment it all came together or all fell apart.

Taryn was looking at him, urging him to stop dithering with last minute tests and activate the emitter, the same look she had given him before they initialised the Bastion computer core. Her faith in him was a comfort, he only hoped it was justified.

"Prior, is this going to take all night?" Haftel asked ill temperedly. "But then you don't sleep do you?" he snorted, "Never in your own bed anyway." he added as an aside. "What's this thing going to look like anyway?"

"We don't know sir." Taryn lied, "We haven't set any predetermined parameters other than it being human." She turned to Reg, "Are you ready Commander Barclay?"

He didn't think he'd ever get used to being called Commander, he'd been a Lieutenant for most of his career, but somehow it felt wonderful when she said it. He actually felt he deserved the promotion Pathfinder had earned him when it came from her lips.

"Yes Commander, all the scans are optimal." he replied nervously.

"Well turn the damn thing on man, let's see what we have." Haftel ordered.

He activated the prototype emitter and held it in position. He knew it would take longer for the hologram to coalesce than The Doctors mobile emitter, it was not only lower tech but the matrix was initialising for the first time. This was a life-form, with consciousness and awareness of its own existence and required time to assert its self-image and take form. They were witnessing a birth, or more correctly a re-birth. It began to shimmer into existence and Barclay noted with some amusement the figure was no taller than Taryn. In moments more became apparent, delicate features, dark eyes, short bobbed hair as black as coal. Haftel's face turned ashen.

"What is the matter Admiral?" Data hissed in the man's ear. "You look as though you have seen a ghost." He placed a hand on the Admiral's shoulder and forced him to his knees, Haftel winced in pain and reached for his shoulder.

"No, no it can't be." Haftel said, "It's dead, I watched its neural net collapse with cascade failure. It's permanent, it can't be reversed."

"You gave us the way to reverse it." Data told him, "You created the perfect nexus of technology, intellect and creativity that was required." Data stepped between Haftel and his daughter and faced her. "Lal?"

"Father?" She looked up at him confused.

"It is alright Lal, we found a way to bring you back." Data told her, tears streaming down his face.

"Guards, phasers to maximum, vaporize every asset in this room. Leave no-one alive." Haftel ordered.

Reg swallowed hard and reached for Taryn's hand entwining his fingers with hers. They were all going to die, he looked at the love of his life and watched in horror as she snorted with laughter. He briefly wondered if she'd become hysterical with the strain of it all. She simply wouldn't stop cackling. Data placed an arm around Lal's shoulders and turned to face Haftel.

"Oh dear God, you don't have a clue do you?" she laughed at Haftel and squeezed Reg's hand affectionately. "You know, if you had approved just one of my fifteen transfer requests since you pressganged me into your command and kept me here in the arsehole of the universe you wouldn't be on your knees with my brother holding a phaser rifle to your head."

Reg tore his eyes from Taryn, the guard was indeed holding the rifle to his head, in fact they both were. It wasn't Geoff. Did she have another one of her brothers in the complex?

"Doc, how are we for time?" one of the guards asked.

"The field will be dropping right about… now."

"I hope so or he'll make a huge mess when he hits that scattering field." the guard said as he pressed an Emergency Transporter Unit to the Admiral's chest and activated it, then smiled at the man's screams of protest. He pulled off the mask and smiled at them, then looked over at The Doctor as he reset his physical parameters.

"How did you know?" Reg asked Taryn, still clutching her hand.

"They were with us in the turbolift." Data smiled.

"Come on Reg you're supposed to be bright." Geoff grinned. "My sister's wedding? Best shrimp I've ever tasted?"

"Oh." Reg replied.

"His beam out won't have gone unnoticed, they'll already have the scattering field back up." Taryn explained and smiled as a klaxon sounded. "And that's the escaped asset alarm right on schedule. Our diversion just turned up. Okay we need the holograms to shut down, they'll be handing out dispersal rifles to the guards."

"It will be alright Lal, we will reactivate you soon." Data reassured her as Reg approached the prototype emitter with a tool. He stopped and looked at the flashing light on the device. "Is there a problem?"

"It's… I can't deactivate her there's… I should have done more tests." Reg blurted.

"Okay," Taryn said rubbing his shoulder, "What's the problem?"

"It's indicating a parsing error, if we take her offline it will corrupt her primary matrix." Reg explained. "Permanently."

"Can you recreate her program again if you lose it? The Doctor suggested.

"The crystalline memory collapsed after we converted the matrix to a hologram." Taryn explained, "It's all untried technology, we've been winging it all day. I don't know if we could replicate the process somewhere else." Taryn explained.

Reg tapped the probe against his other hand nervously, there had to be a solution. "Wait, we can transfer her program to the computer." Reg suggested.

"I will not leave her here." Data said, holding his daughter. Reg could see she was becoming frightened.

"I can upload her to the memory module we brought in, we can take her with us the same way." Reg told him.

Data nodded. "Everything is going to be alright." He reassured her, cupping the girl's cheek in his palm.

"Computer, transfer program Lal to the main computer." Reg said and removed the emitter from her arm. "Geoff, take Taryn and get her out of here."

"No, we stay together." Taryn protested.

"This is going to take a minute or two, they're already on alert, if they go to lock down you won't get out." Reg stated as Data turned his back and began to undress and release his pelvic unit.

"Then we all won't get out, and there's a way around lockdown anyway." Taryn said.

"You can get out during lockdown without a transponder?" Geoff asked.

"Yes." Taryn replied.

"How?" Data asked as he handed Reg the memory unit and watched him start the upload."

"I'd prefer not to say until I have to." Taryn said. "Just, certain other alerts supersede lockdown to enable evacuation."

"Taryn, what on earth could trigger a complex wide evacuation?" Reg asked handing Data the memory unit to hide again.

"Take this too." Taryn suggested, handing Data the failed crystalline memory. "Lucy might be able to learn something from it." She also handed him The Doctor's mobile emitter to hide. Data closed his pelvic panel and adjusted his clothing.

She was avoiding the question, and Reg knew what that meant. No-one was going to like it. He tried her trick and stared at her until she gave in. It worked quicker than he'd expected.

"Okay, okay. It would take a pathogen sensor alert from the Biogenic Weapons Lab." Taryn said as the four of them headed for the corridor.

"What?" Reg shrieked. "You released over three hundred demons in this facility and now you want to kill everyone with a biogenic weapon?"

"No," Data stated, "we just have to trigger the alert."

"Exactly." Taryn said as they strode towards the turbolift. "I sometimes wonder what you really think of me Reg. I saw your face when I turned up in the lab. You thought I was working for Haftel." Taryn tutted. "No wonder I have trust issues, you don't trust me," She indicated Data, "He thought I'd murdered B-4. Haftel thinks I'm a slapper. Bateson doesn't know what to make of… You've got to be shitting me!" she exclaimed her eyes wide with terror.

Reg followed her stare to the end of the corridor and the turbolift. At an intersection ahead of them a Vortigon had turned the corner and was walking their way, but it didn't have the horns of a ram, it had the horns of a goat.

"That's not a Mark II." Geoff said, stating the obvious.

"They didn't upgrade." Reg breathed, "What did I miss?"

"Run." Data shouted.

Reg felt Geoff grab his sleeve and tow him down a corridor, at the next intersection they turned and ran again then repeated the process several times. The place was like a rabbit warren, every corridor looked the same.

"Do you know where we are?" Reg asked breathlessly when they finally stopped.

"I studied the plans for the complex, I know where we are." Geoff said, sickeningly not out of breath.

"Okay, do you know where Taryn and Data are?" Reg asked. "So much for us sticking together." He looked at the prototype emitter in his hand. "Wait, I have an idea. I need to find a terminal."

…

Taryn was pelting down the corridor at full tilt with the Vortigon Mark I hot on her heels. She had become separated from Data when another demon that had not received the upgrade materialised and she dodged it's grasp and sprinted down a different corridor. She guessed they had a Vortigon each on their tail. This was not part of the plan, their distraction was not supposed to try to kill them or anyone else.

She'd been running for a while and was still feeling strong but knew she couldn't outrun the being forever, she was going to tire and he wasn't. Her luck wasn't in, two more demons appeared with rams horns running towards her with swords drawn. If she kicked hard there was a chance she could reach the next intersection before them and may have somewhere to turn. The ceilings were smooth and without ducts, the vents provided no hand holds so heading upwards wasn't even an option.

She was too late and skidded to a halt, falling at the feet of the enormous beings, she heard the footsteps of the one behind her slow and watched in horror as the demons wielded their great-swords above their heads to strike. Instinctively she raised her arm over her face as the blades were about to fall. She heard the sound of metal hitting metal and looked up to see a sword had protected her from the blows and felt a large hand grasp her by the upper arm and half drag her as she struggled to stand in the direction of the turbolift a short distance away. She ran, the demon not far behind her and slowed as she reached the doors, they opened and she was pushed inside ahead of the demon by a large hand on her back. The being with her leant his back against the wall, dropped his sword to the floor which vanished instantly and panted for breath.

"Hold turbolift. Holy crap." he gasped, "I'm too old for this shit."

She looked at the Vortigon Mark II and realised immediately he was lacking in certain areas. He was nearly two feet too short for one thing and his eyes were brown and had whites to them, not the solid inkdrop black that was normal. There was something very familiar about the eyes, not to mention the voice.

"Reg?" Taryn asked in disbelief, "What the…"

The demon nodded, "I tried your trick with the photonic signature but my emitter doesn't work like The Doctor's." Reg smiled at her with Vortigon's face.

"Oh my God, you have his physical parameters, you're inside the force fields." she touched his muscular bronze chest that was still heaving. "Can you breathe okay?"

"When I'm not running like a bastard and carrying a six foot great-sword that weighs half a ton I can breathe just fine." he leaned against his knees. "I really need to get to the gym more often." he looked at her and forced a smile.

"Where's the emitter?" she asked.

"Somewhere under this bicep." he replied, pointing to his left arm. "I hope you like this body because I'm stuck like this."

"I prefer yours." She smiled at him, "I can think of three options. Another hologram could reach in and get it, if I can find a photonic gauntlet I should be able to or…"

"Or you could disperse the photons around me." he finished the thought. "I don't like the sound of being surrounded by burning photons. Have they even tested those guns on organic tissue?"

"I have no idea, they were developed here so probably not." She laughed, "You have no idea what you've done have you?" Reg looked at her with a puzzled expression on his demonic face. "You have not only created a mobile emitter that supported a photonic life form for two minutes. The potential applications for this," she grasped his upper arms, "total immersion gaming, espionage, body armour, maybe even environmental protection… Give me time I'm sure I'll think of more." She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

"Let's save the ticker tape parade till we get out of here." he suggested. "The good news is there are only twenty-seven Vortigons that failed to upgrade. There were no Mark II's on this floor so I redirected some and gave them all an additional directive to rip the hearts out of any Mark I's they find. Geoff and Data are waiting on Level Ten. They have a plan to get us all out of here."

"Okay, let's stop at a hololab and pick up a gauntlet so I can get my man back. Continue Turbolift Level Eight." she said and looked at Reg sideways. "Do you feel sensations in there?"

"Sort of, the field seems to transfer kinetic energy to my real bod…" He stopped and turned his head to face her, with the horns it looked quite menacing. "I am not making love to you with this body."

"No, I'm not suggesting… although now you mention it…" A smile spread over her face. "No, it wouldn't work. Under that banana hammock there's the definition of a Flotter doll. But that would be another application, sexual role-play."

"I'm not even going to ask how you know what's under this codpiece." Reg said and folded one arm over the other in a pout.

Taryn reached out and hugged him. "I looked at his code, not his codling. I toyed with the idea of writing a new Rosalba to tame him with sex, but…" He gave in and put his arm around her cupped her cheek with his hand and bent to kiss her. "Could you keep your eyes open? It's too weird."

"My eyes, why?"

"You haven't seen yourself have you? You still have your eyes. When you shut them it's like I'm kissing Vortigon." she explained.

He smirked, "I may be vanilla but you suck at role-play."

"I'm sorry, I'd rather kiss you than some monster with horns. Is that a problem?" she said indignantly. "You looked up vanilla?" she asked nervously.

"I look up all your references. Including small green Jedi Masters with pointy ears."

"Actually, I never minded that nickname. Yoda is a badass." she told him, "Don't tell my family though." She smiled.

"Instead of dinner we could watch the movies if you want?" he suggested.

"There are loads of them you know, and there's an issue on which order to watch the first six." she replied.

"I know." He smiled. "I have an ulterior motive. I'd rather spend hours sitting alone with you in the dark than in a crowded restaurant somewhere." She shot him a look. "Of course I'll book someplace nice and take you to dinner as well." he added quickly.

"Nice save." She smiled as the turbolift door opened.

…

"I'll have all your commands for this," Haftel hissed as he paced back and forth in the Enterprise brig, "and I'll have that little green bitch charged with mutiny."

Picard exchanged glances with his colleagues. "I imagine you'll be busy facing charges of your own Admiral."

"What charges?" Haftel laughed, "Where's your evidence? A file faked by Prior's son, computer files stolen by his other son and hearsay from his daughter? I don't think it will stand up to scrutiny. Do you?"

"He has a point." Riker said as they walked towards the conference room. "Evidence is one thing but it could look like Admiral Prior's personal vendetta."

"So far the evidence isn't all we hoped, but the investigation is continuing." Picard admitted. "There are clear signs the records have been doctored but that in itself isn't enough to launch an enquiry."

"Which leaves us with three starships containing highly classified data we had no right to take." Bateson intoned. "Let's hope the away team come up with something more compelling."

Riker shrugged, "If all else fails we can always claim the Nuremberg Defence." He grinned. "Blame the Admirals."

 _Author's note_

 _Apologies if the Polish translation is iffy, blame Google. I also do not own Yoda or any characters from Star Wars._

 _The sequel is done and ready to roll, and only two more chapters of this story to go so it should start next week._


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

Level Ten was small in relation to the other levels. It housed the computer core and the field control systems and little else. When Taryn and Reg arrived Geoffrey and Data were scanning the far wall with tricorders.

"Is there a problem?" Taryn asked.

"We are reading large amounts of beryllium-titanium alloy behind this wall."

"You're kidding." she replied and looked at her brother's tricorder. He handed it to her and began a physical examination of the wall. "I'm not getting a positron signal, or any electrical activity."

"No. Whoever is behind there is inert." Data replied.

"Whoever? Did I miss something?" Reg asked.

"Remember we were discussing this planet maybe being originally called Mudd on the Chekov?" Taryn explained. "Well, not a lot is known about the Andromeda androids that lived there as after Kirk left most of the records on the planet and its inhabitants were classified. But the entire crew of the Enterprise were beamed down and word got out. What we do know is it was K-Class, there were 200,000 androids there with a lifespan of up to 500,000 years and their skeletal structures were made of a beryllium-titanium alloy." She changed the setting on the tricorder. "Rumour has it they were left bereft as the sun of their home system went nova leaving only remote outposts and the beings they were built to serve became extinct. They were self-aware but always wanted the guidance of organic life-forms. They lived to serve."

"So they would be vulnerable to anyone who wanted to take advantage." Reg replied looking at her tricorder. "Try a polaric ion scan." he suggested.

Data adjusted his tricorder. "No, there is no power signature of any kind."

"Is this wall load bearing Data?" Geoff asked.

"It is not." Data replied and picked up The Doctor's phaser rifle from against the wall and joined Geoff. "Stand back." he instructed and they blasted a hole through the wall.

"Good Lord." Taryn breathed as she looked into the cavernous chamber beyond the wall. Her hand rose to her mouth in horror. "This is… it's a mass grave." she said and clambered through the hole followed by the others.

Lying strewn in the chamber, so deep no floor was visible were limbs, torsos and heads with wires, cables and components part removed. Taryn picked up a female head that was split open by force and scanned it with a tricorder.

"Data?" she said, "Is this what I think it is?"

"It is the remains of organic neural tissue. Human." Data confirmed, "It appears the other rumour was also true." He looked at Reg and Geoff. "Some of the first Enterprise crew claimed they were offered immortality and eternal beauty if they agreed to transfer their brain to an android body."

"This one can't have housed a brain, the internal configuration is all wrong." Reg said, "But someone stripped out all the components and did a messy job of it." He turned the head over in his hands. "She was pretty."

"They say Mudd liked them pretty." Taryn said then paled as she checked her tricorder. "We're twenty metres above the floor." She looked at Data, "Can you estimate how many androids are in this room?" Data simply looked at her in reply. "All of them?" she whispered. "The bastard, this is genocide." Taryn exclaimed. "He wasted all this life and he still can't build an android that works." She felt bile rising in her throat. Gagging she turned and struggled to get back to the hole in the wall, crawled through it, dropped to her hands and knees and was violently sick. Reg appeared beside her, stroking her back.

"We have to get out of here." Geoff said returning to the room. "You think this is bad? You need to see Level Six, they left the life-forms there alive."

"He is right, we need to get this tricorder and The Doctor back to the Enterprise." Data told them. "It is evidence Starfleet and the Federation cannot ignore and will have to investigate."

"We were thinking of trying to drop the scattering field again and get out that way." Geoff said.

"That's risky. Sending someone on an Emergency Transport Unit through a window knowing it will trigger an alarm is one thing but dropping it for four to transport is something else." Reg stated with his arm around Taryn. "With the atmosphere on this planet they might not be able to beam us all together anyway."

"Communications are also blocked so we would be unable to coordinate with the Enterprise." Data added.

"Is the security system linked to life support?" Reg asked.

"No." Taryn said, her breathing still uneven.

"Then we can bring down the entire security net." Data stated.

"That would release the restraint fields on Level Six." Geoff warned, "Believe me, not a good idea."

"And the containment units in the Biogenic Weapons lab." Taryn warned. "I also haven't the first idea what they have on Level Seven, they call it Alien Research, it could be anything but it sucks a shed load of power." Taryn said. "How many Vortigons are there on Level Zero?"

"None. I never included Zero as a level in their program." Reg said and ran to the nearest terminal. "I didn't think they'd have emitters on the hangar level."

"Haftel had a brainchild of holographic security teams running the Checkpoint but they vaporised four lab techs, an exobiologist and a bio-engineer before I could shut them down. Taryn explained, following him. "Another Masters and Young enterprise."

"How many do we need?" Reg asked.

"All of them." Taryn replied

The hangar level was literally pandemonium when they emerged from the turbolift. Roaring, growling demons were smashing everything in sight. The security checkpoint was a pile of twisted metal, shuttlecraft were being ripped apart and guards ran in all directions frantically trying to disperse the demonic onslaught, but more kept coming.

Data lead the way to the outgoing transit station with Geoff bringing up the rear through the melee as they were forced to dodge left and right. The Vortigon constructs stepped between the away team and the guards like photonic shields, some exploding as they were dispersed raining depolarising photons over their brothers who began to dissolve, screaming in pain, however sacrificing themselves in the defence of the away team was not part of the upgrade. But after protracted debate they had given them knowledge of the mission and its objectives. They retained their sentience and their self-determination, this was their choice.

Just as they reached the transit pod Data stopped and waited for the others. Phaser fire sounded twice through the chaos and Taryn turned to see Ruxia Dar taking aim at them with a type 2 phaser. Just as she fired a Vortigon II impaled her through the chest knocking her aim and Taryn felt searing pain in her arm as she fell to the floor. Her brother snatched her up without breaking stride and followed Barclay onto the small vehicle and Data jumped in behind him and closed the door.

"Fleming Square." Taryn ordered through gritted teeth as Geoff deposited her on a seat. She looked at her arm and was surprised to find it still attached. Her sleeve was charred and burnt through from her deltoid down and her hand and the skin showing through her uniform was bloodied and blistering.

"Oh boy." Reg swallowed hard as he looked at her arm and rushed to her side.

"That phaser was set to kill." Data told her as he scanned her with a tricorder.

"Luckily she's a crappy shot and just winged me." Taryn grasped Reg's hand with her good one. "It can't be that bad, it hurts like hell." she told him. She knew that the most painful burns were second degree. Full thickness third degree burns produce little pain at all.

"It is not that bad." Data told them. "You will be fine."

"Unlike Ruxia." Taryn said sadly and at Reg's confused expression added, "She got skewered. This shot was heading for you." Data nodded in confirmation and Reg's eyes widened. "One of your Mark II Vortigon's broke his mortality failsafe to save your life." she looked at him, "I told you they were clever."

"Not that clever, you could have been killed." Reg kissed the hand he was holding.

"Let's hope we reach the surface before they go to lockdown." Geoff said. Taryn raised her head to look out of the window and sighed with relief as they passed the last bulkhead. Geoff touched his communicator. "Prior to Enterprise. Four to beam up."

 _"_ _O'Brien here, We have some atmospheric interference. I can only get a clear lock on two of you. Commander Data has no communicator and there is a problem with Lieutenant Commander Prior's. We'll have to beam you separately. Just a precaution, nothing to worry about Commander Barclay."_

Taryn smirked, "Looks like my arm wasn't the only thing she hit." Taryn said, looking at her charred combadge.

"Take mine and go." Reg said offering her his combadge.

"No take mine." Geoff said attaching it to her uniform. "I still have a transponder in my arm and here is the one The Doctor used." He handed the transponder to Data who popped open a panel and dropped it into his arm. "O'Brien, how many signals to you have now?"

 _"_ _I don't know how you did it but I have four."_

"Wait, there's someone I have to rescue." Taryn said. "I never want to set foot on this planet again and he's the only thing here that matters apart from you lot. My place is less than five minutes away."

"Very well, we will retrieve your cat." Data told her.

"I'll take her." Geoff said. "You're carrying all the evidence you should go first."

"He goes first." Data said, pointing to Barclay.

"No." Reg protested. "I'm not leaving you here." he told her.

"This is ridiculous. Data has seniority it's his call. Reg, go." Taryn told him. "I'll be fine."

Reg kissed her and gazed into her eyes. "Don't you dare be far behind me." he whispered and kissed her again.

"I won't. I'll see you soon." she replied and watched as he stepped back and disappeared in the shimmering transporter beam. Data soon followed suit.

The transit pod came to a stop, Geoff helped Taryn to her feet and she guided him to her home just off a small town square. Horatio reacted badly to Geoff's presence but Taryn managed to get him into a pet carrier using bribery while her brother waited outside without too much difficulty. She retrieved a suit carrier from the bedroom upstairs, then she grabbed her field hockey bag from by the door and handed it to Geoff. That was the sum of her belongings at her house, six dresses, a sports bag and a cat. This place was never her home, it was just where she slept and occasionally ate. She picked up Horatio with her good arm, made a mental note to write to her neighbour thanking her for feeding the cat while she was away and they beamed to the ship. She materialised on the pad to find Miles O'Brien looking worried. Data examining the transporter logs and an engineering team arriving on the scene

"What?" Taryn asked. "What happened?" Taryn asked, putting down the pet carrier. "Where's Reg?"

"We do not know," Data explained, "He did not materialise."

…

"She's coming round Doctor." Alyssa Ogawa's voice echoed through the darkness as her eyelids fluttered open.

"Ah, you're back with us." The Doctor smiled down at her.

"What happened?" Taryn asked groggily.

"You fainted in the transporter room." he told her. "You hit your head on the console on the way down."

"I never faint." Taryn protested then remembered what had happened. "Reg?" she asked desperately and tried to sit up.

"Everyone is working on it, they believe his pattern was diverted somewhere else. It's just a matter of finding him." The Doctor reassured her.

"It's a K-Class planet, if he ended up on the surface... Oh God." she began to sob. "I can't stay here. I have to help." She sat up and her head started spinning.

"You are going nowhere." The Doctor told her, pushing her back on the bed. "We still need to finish treating those burns and you're anaemic, you're staying here until I find out why."

Taryn looked at him and blinked. "Did you turn up the lights in here? It's awfully bright."

The Doctor exchanged a glance with Nurse Ogawa. "Have you experienced any nausea?" he asked, altered the settings on his tricorder and scanned her.

…

"What do you mean his signal was bounced?" Picard asked as they stood in the transporter room.

"We believe a tractor beam diverted his signal to another location while he was in the matter stream sir." Data explained. "Scans for his combadge have proved fruitless thus far. We have initiated a search pattern and are scanning the entire planet but the chances of finding one biosignature without narrowing the area of the search are…"

"I don't need to hear the odds, Number One." Picard intoned.

"We've been able to plot the point of origin of the tractor beam. It's on the surface of the planet." O'Brien explained and brought up an image on the small screen on the console. "Here sir."

"That's nowhere near the Daystrom Annex Complex or the Habitat Dome." Picard commented with a frown.

"Captain, I would like to beam down and survey the site." Data requested.

"Make it so Number One."

…

Taryn was sitting in her quarters with her arms wrapped around her shins and her chin resting on her knees. She felt utterly numb. A transporter, of all the ways to lose him it had to be something that terrified him. At least it wasn't an accident, someone had redirected the matter stream but despite their best efforts they were no closer to finding who, why or where to. All they knew was the emitter came from the planet's surface and there was no trace of it left when Data beamed down less than two hours later. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was they couldn't find him.

They had searched every inch of the Enterprise, the Titan and the Bozeman and with emergency measures in place thanks to Admiral Paris a full security sweep of the Daystrom Annex and the Habitat Dome had been conducted and yielded no results. The Annex was currently shut down pending a full investigation into the activities of Admiral Haftel and certain other officers there, herself included. She wasn't worried, not just because her conscience was clear but because she simply didn't care.

She didn't care about anything beyond the gaping hole in her soul that ripped further apart every time she asked Data if Reg was beamed to the surface of that ball of shit surrounded by an atmosphere of toxic gas that would kill a man in a single breath and she knew from his face he simply didn't know. He'd made the logical argument that there were easier ways to kill someone during transport than going to the effort of setting up a tractor emitter, diverting them to a toxic atmosphere to die and then removing the evidence. She had to admit he had a point but that didn't bring them any closer to finding him and it had been a month. A month yesterday. She couldn't even sense anything via their mating bond, but then it's unlikely she ever would, her hybrid neural anatomy prevented remote telepathy of any kind.

The Enterprise and the Titan were still in orbit and had been joined by the USS Apollo with the investigation team. It was a simple enough task to get the Vortigon Mark II's to shut down, they were far more agreeable than their big brothers and surprisingly considering the chaos only forty-three were lost with only two organic casualties. Lieutenant Ruxia Dar and Lieutenant Commander Reginald Barclay who as of yesterday was upgraded from Missing in Action to Missing Presumed Dead.

The Bozeman had returned to Earth as soon as the Apollo had arrived with a relief crew taking many of the officers that had lead the charge to their rescue. Tom and B'Elanna had a child and their posts to return to, as did Miles O'Brien, Tuvok and her brother. Ootani had left of course, the selfish swine, but Admiral Janeway, Seven of Nine and everyone else that had commandeered the Bastion had stayed. Her father had left reluctantly and begged Taryn to return to Earth with him but there was no way she was leaving and not just because she refused to abandon hope. She stayed for the reason the others had, they were leaders in their fields and the Annex was full of damaged artificial and inorganic life that needed rehabilitation and care. She saw the irony of course, she'd spent three long years trying to claw her way out of the place and now she wouldn't leave. Her suspension had been lifted almost as soon as the Apollo arrived, she was cleared of any wrongdoing although there was still the small matter of two courts martial to face, standard procedure when a ship is lost and she was involved in the loss of two. She felt better since she returned to work, it kept her busy. Her duties kept her mind off the cloying sense of loss that threatened to overwhelm her.

But not today, she was in mourning today. She refused to be an officer today. Today was a day to be overwhelmed.

Something in her peripheral vision distracted her and she looked up. She had given up locking the door as there had been a constant stream of people checking she was okay since she was released from sickbay. She was fed up with telling people to come in. She'd have left the door open if it hadn't been for the cat.

"I don't need counselling Deanna." Taryn stated. At the sound of her voice Ratio stirred beside her, opened his copper eye, yawned and looked at her balefully. He would no doubt start harassing her for food soon.

"That isn't why I'm here." Deanna told her and stepped forward. She held out a padd and Taryn took it.

"What's this?" Taryn asked.

"I got a letter from Reg, it was snarled up at a relay station for the last month. It included a letter addressed to you. He asked me to give it to you if anything went wrong on the mission. He said he loved you very much but you had lost faith in him."

"I never lost faith in him. My feelings were bruised over Program 9 but we made up before the mission, long before I saw the painting." She looked at Deanna, "His face when he looked up and saw her wasn't one of a man caught with his pants around his ankles, he looked scared. The same face he pulled when he'd freak out if I was hurt."

"He was afraid of losing you." Deanna said softly.

"You're counselling me again." Taryn warned, and shot her a chiding glance with no spite in it.

"Force of habit." Deanna smiled weakly and sat on the bed beside her, stroking Ratio's thick blue fur.

"How are you doing?" Taryn asked.

Deanna drew a deep breath. "It's not easy to accept. He wasn't just a patient, he was an extremely demanding patient that tied up a lot of my time even after he left the Enterprise but I indulged him because I considered him a friend. He deserved the chance for his intellect to flourish and I was in the right place to enable that, or at least point him in that direction and I found it… rewarding."

Taryn nodded, "I feel much the same about B-4." She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Why did it have to be a transporter?" she asked the woman with the inkdrop eyes.

"I know." she simply replied.

"He never should have put his faith in me, it was utterly misplaced. I thought I had the answer to everything but as usual I forgot I can't shit miracles." She looked at Deanna, "Something my Grandad used tell my Grandma when she was being demanding, 'I can't shit miracles woman.' It always made me laugh."

"His faith in you wasn't misplaced." Deanna said. "You know I can't read you but it's obvious how deeply you felt about him."

"Past tense." Taryn sniffed, "How do you get used to that?"

"Honestly? It's a cliché but it gets easier with time."

"I stood there on the Bozeman and swore that I would get everyone out of that pit of despair or die trying and I failed," she sniffed. "I promised him it would be alright Deanna," Taryn told her, "I told him I had his back." She wiped her tears on the knees of her black combat pants. "He said he was the goose that laid the mobile emitter and I was the one in da..." She looked up suddenly. "I need to speak to Data. He's been searching for the wrong thing in the wrong place." She grabbed her combadge from the bedside table, fixed it to her sleeveless black top and pressed it. "Prior to Data are you still on the planet?"

 _"_ _I am currently on the Bridge. Is there a problem?"_

"Would it be alright for me to use the Ops Station for… maybe fifteen minutes?" she asked.

 _"_ _Of course."_

She crossed her legs and stood on the bed then jumped off it heading for the door.

"Wait? Taryn what are you going to do?" Deanna asked.

Taryn ran back into the room cupped her hand behind Deanna's head and kissed her on the lips. A soft, warm, tender kiss.

"That's for saving his career on the Enterprise D. Now come on." she grabbed the Betazoid counsellor by the wrist and led her from the room. "I think I'm about to shit a miracle."

…

Data looked up from the command chair as the two women entered the Bridge. He was surprised to hear from Taryn today. She had taken the day as compassionate leave on hearing the news they were giving up the search for Barclay. They had exhausted every avenue, scanned for life signs for over a month and been forced to conclude he was most likely dead. There was simply no trace of him.

Taryn headed straight for the Ops console without a word, the Ensign sat there gave it up immediately, it was only manned because of procedure. With the ship in standard orbit there was nothing to do.

"Data, I'm worried. She's displaying manic behaviour." Deanna whispered.

"Give me fifteen minutes and you can put me under psych evaluation." Taryn said as she reconfigured the sensors. "Maybe even less, but I have to try this."

"Vulcan ears." Data told Deanna with a tilt of his head and put the display from the Ops panel on the main viewer. He wanted to monitor what she was doing and from the body language of the bridge crew they were intrigued as well but he had learned at Daystrom she did not react well to a crowd of people hovering over her. In fact she had once told the assembled team of the B-4 project to 'let the dog see the rabbit' and transferred her screen to the holo-emitter in the lab so they could watch her work. Just as well she never served with Captain Riker, he always had his foot on his console, looming over him when they were on the 'D'. Besides, his new emotion circuitry had come with a new emotion, boredom and the view of Galor IV was deathly dull. It was orange with glowing rings and swirling clouds, but other than that the only feature on the barren surface was the Habitat Dome and the doors to the Annex and the occasional ion storm. It only took the first scan to realise she was on to something. "Bridge to Captain Picard, you need to see this sir."

The Captain emerged from his ready room and Data rose to his feet but neither man took his seat as she rotated the image of the planet. There was a large glowing cluster visible under the outline of the Daystrom Annex, but as she rotated a smaller collection of dots became visible on the far side of the planet, spread out in a geometric pattern and they were in motion.

"Beryllium-Titanium alloy." Data breathed. "There is another complex."

"Beryllium and titanium, just like the final piece of the prototype mobile emitter." Taryn said and drummed her fingers on the edge of the console. "Let's see just how good these Sovereign class sensors really are." Data watched as she did exactly what he would do in her place, she reconfigured the sensors again, confined the beam to the newly discovered complex then performed another scan. A solitary light flashed on the screen below the planet's surface. "I don't know where Reg is but that is the power signature from the prototype emitter he had tucked in his shirt when he beamed off the surface." As she spoke she reconfigured the sensors again with an even tighter focus now she had somewhere to aim at, "It's in a breathable atmosphere and that…" she pointed to the blinking light on screen.

"That's a human biosignature." Troi stated, with an incredulous expression on her face.

Taryn turned the seat and looked at the three officers stood staring at the blinking light on the screen. "We assumed he was snatched as part of the Annex conspiracy, we also assumed the androids were all destroyed but if so much as one survived they could manufacture more. They can move on the surface and they're strong so shifting a tractor emitter isn't a problem and what do they want? What do they need?"

"A human being to instruct them." Data squeezed her shoulder. "I always said for a cyberneticist you are a remarkable Ops officer. Permission to assemble an away team sir?"

"I believe the official visit can wait Number One." Picard intoned, "First things first. Bridge to Transporter Room One. Lock on to the biosignature at the following location and beam whoever it is up." he indicated to Taryn to send the coordinates. "Oh and Commander Prior, I believe you are currently on compassionate leave so I will overlook the fact you are on my Bridge out of uniform. Report to Transporter Room One immediately." he ordered.

"Aye sir." Taryn said and rose from the console and headed to the turbolift.

"Commander?" Picard called as she reached the door. "Good work." he smiled as the door closed. "You were right about her Number One. It's a shame Admiral Maddox made her an offer she couldn't refuse."


	25. Chapter 25 & Epilogue

**Chapter 25**

Barclay didn't know what else to try. He was sitting in the library seeking inspiration from the Andromeda computer. His elbow was resting on the terminal as he flicked through the files. It was hopeless. He clenched his fist and pressed his forehead to the inside of his wrist. They'd held him here for a month according to the computer and he knew that was an important milestone. He was now presumed dead. He had no idea if anyone else made it off the planet. For all he knew the planetary forces had rounded them up and executed them, he didn't even know if there were still ships in orbit and his android captors would only say they were not programmed to respond in that area.

Captors was a bit strong, he knew. They were treating him well but a gilded cage was still a cage and he was a bird with a mate for life who was either dead or had been told in the last twenty-four hours that he was. He missed her more than he thought possible. Her smell, the feel of her skin, the silky sensation of her hair against his skin when he held her. She'd have got his letter long ago, pleading with her to go on with her life and find someone else. Another shit hot idea from the awesome Barclay intellect. God he regretted that letter. It urged her to seek comfort where she could, he might as well have told her to approach Data, throw him down and bounce up and down on top of him. He wasn't certain but it may have said she should turn to The Doctor when in need of a crutch to lean on. He really hoped he spelled it right. In retrospect the inadvertent double entendres were positively agonising but he'd written it in tears and sent it before he lost the courage. He was usually quite good at writing letters, he'd had compliments from many of his friends but the first, last and only letter he'd sent to the woman he loved most in all the galaxy was simply appalling and drenched in bathos.

"Is there anything you require?" Alice 83 asked him.

"I require to be left alone." he snapped, "and maybe a chicken sandwich and a coffee," he added reluctantly, "and a fennel tea please." He always asked for fennel tea but never drank it. If he closed his eyes the smell helped him imagine she was sitting there with him. He'd abandoned the hunger strike he'd tried to convince them to let him go. The androids had a practical response to that form of civil disobedience. After losing around ten pounds and thinking it was looking pretty good on him they had sedated him and he woke up strapped down with tubes in every orifice apart from his mouth including one up his nose that they fed him through. For beings designed to serve organic beings their medical skills were woefully backwards. By the time they unstrapped him he'd regained eleven pounds. He wasn't even bothering to dress anymore, he slobbed around the place in pyjamas all the time although he showered and changed them every day. He wasn't an animal.

The food appeared at his elbow as ordered, delivered by a sickeningly pretty android dressed in a backless pink chiffon, he wasn't sure what it was but it was too short to be classed as a dress, it looked like swimwear to him. He thanked her and crunched forlornly on a potato chip. Before he met Taryn he'd have loved this place. It must be love, he was surrounded by a harem of beautiful androids desperate to satiate his every whim but all he could think of was emerald skin, raven hair and elven ears. She'd ruined him for all other women from the moment he laid eyes on her. It never even occurred to him to put Program 9 right once he had seen where he went wrong. He wanted the real girl and no substitute would do. This place was wasted on him, Dan would be in amongst the girls here like a Ferengi in a copy of Vulcan Love Slaves 3. There wasn't much by way of male company though. For some reason he didn't understand they were still following the demographic set down by King Mudd I.

He'd had significantly more freedom when he first arrived. The laboratories here were better equipped than the ones at the Daystrom Institute or the Annex. Of course the first thing he'd built was a communicator as they had destroyed his as soon as he arrived. They confiscated it so he started work on a subspace transmitter until they worked out what it was. He built an energising coil, a molecular imaging scanner, a phase transition coil and a pattern buffer but unfortunately while he was assembling the Heisenberg compensator they realised he wasn't just pottering about, he was building a transporter and they revoked his lab privileges.

He was bored. He spent his days browsing the computer and his nights pining for his lost love, unable to sleep. The androids didn't even realise they were killing him slowly, but as surely as a phaser to the head. He couldn't live out the rest of his days inside this hollow planet, with its sycophantic life. Taryn and Deanna would be pleased if they knew he had finally learned to relax. All it took was abandoning all hope and giving up. It was just a matter of working out how to end it all quickly so the androids would be unable to stop him.

He picked up the prototype mobile emitter. She'd been so proud when it worked even though it had been for less than two minutes. He'd even worked out how to stabilise it further, it needed a buffer between… What was the point? He could invent the fountain of youth and no one would ever know. He was to all intents and purposes a dead man.

"We have something to show you My Lord." Barbara 25 intoned.

"That isn't my name." he said, resting his head on his fist and taking a bite of the sandwich.

"We have something to show you Reg." she corrected, and he turned to face the brunette in the shimmering green dress.

"Better. Remember no-one is your master Barbara. You can choose your own path." He'd said it a million times and knew he could say it until he was blue in the face. He'd tried everything short of shoving a screwdriver in their ear while screaming it at them. They just couldn't break their dependence on organic life and this was Taryn's area of expertise not his. "What did you want to show me?" he said resignedly still leaning on the counter with his elbow and took a sip of his coffee.

"We have created something designed to make you happy." she replied. "Something to please you."

His heart sank at the words. This couldn't be good. Why couldn't they grasp that the only thing that would make him happy and please him would be to let him go? He took another mouthful of coffee and sprayed it everywhere as Barbara 25 stepped aside to reveal the new model of android.

"This is the Taryn series."

"What have you done?" he shrieked as he walked towards the perfect copy of the woman he loved. She looked up at him and smiled, but it wasn't Taryn's smile despite the fact she had about a hundred different ones. Around her neck was the number 1 on a chain choker. "Oh God, tell me this is a prototype and you haven't made five hundred of her?"

"We made a full series, doesn't that please you?" Barbara 25 asked.

"No it doesn't please me. She's unique, she can't be duplicated by a production line. It…it just… isn't her and now there are five hundred of her faces to remind me just how much I miss her." He turned away and covered his mouth with his hand. "How did you even know what she looks like?"

"We have been watching the beings on the other side of the planet, we have seen her."

He whirled around. "Recently?"

"I am not programmed to respond in that area." Barbara 25 responded.

"Don't you… love me?" Taryn 1 asked him plaintively. They'd even got her voice right, her hair. She was even in a Starfleet uniform.

"I…It's not your fault. You just aren't the woman I'm in love with." he explained.

"But… you must love me. I'm made for you." she replied, the number around her neck flashing furiously, her face contorting with emotion. "I…" she looked up at him with panic on her face and then it turned blank and she collapsed to the floor.

"What's wrong, what happened?" he asked Barbara 25 and stepped towards the inert android.

"The Taryn series has failed in its primary purpose. It did not make you happy. The series has been recalled." she advised him blankly.

"Recalled? What do you mean recalled?" he asked in a panic. "You killed them all?"

"They were unfit for purpose." Barbara 25 stated. "They will no longer cause you distress." she turned, grabbed Taryn 1 by the wrist and dragged her out of the room.

He couldn't do this anymore, they didn't value life, not his, not their own. Life without freedom had no point. Life without Taryn had no purpose. Life without work was so dull. He was already presumed dead, he might as well make it official. He grabbed the prototype emitter and put it in the pocket of his pyjama top, close to his heart as it had made her so proud. Took a deep sniff of the cup of fennel tea and returned it to the console then picked up the chair and smashed it into the screen. There must be a power supply, a pretty major one, the console had a dozen stations. He broke away some glass and leaned in for a closer look. There it was, all he had to do was loosen the cable to create an arc and shove his hand into it. It would be just like the Bastion but no Data or The Doctor to save his life. He stopped and thought for a moment. What if they saved his brain and put it in an android? He had to fry his synaptic tissue, his head needed to go in the energy field. He reached in and grabbed the cable and began to wiggle it free…

He felt the tingle of a transporter and dropped the cable. Hope swelled in his chest as the library faded away and he recognised the outline of a transporter console with an operator behind it. As he materialised he dropped to his knees and began to weep with relief.

The door opened and she was there in a flash astride his lap holding him. "It's okay," Taryn whispered and turned to the operator as he clung to her like a drowning man. "Beam us to sickbay and ask Counsellor Troi to join us please." she requested. He sobbed into her shoulder with his eyes closed and felt the sensation of being in the matter stream.

"Reg, you need to let her go so I can examine you." The Doctor said.

"It's okay, I'll be right here." she whispered and kissed him. He reluctantly let her go, stood and let her lead him by the hand to a biobed and he sat.

"Is your arm okay?" Reg asked her, wiping his face with his sleeve. "I've been worried sick, I didn't know what happened to you." His breath hitched, "Did you all get off the planet okay? The mission? Haftel?" He realised she was out of uniform. "Did you resign?" He wanted to know everything, all at once.

"My arm is fine, it didn't even scar thanks to The Doctor." she said, "Yes we all got off the planet including the cat. The mission was… well there's an investigation going on. Haftel has been shipped back to Earth, they've already uncovered the Armaments Division have continued The Pegasus Project and have been working on an interphase cloak in violation of the Treaty of Algeron and Haftel's sticky fingers are all over it. There are other Treaty violations in Biogenics and Weapons and that's before they even look at Cybernetics and Holography. They've only cleared one of the Officers so far…"

"Don't tell me, Masters?" Reg asked as The Doctor buzzed around him with a scanner.

"Her, you idiot." The Doctor said archly.

"They charged you?" Reg asked incredulously.

"They suspended me pending the investigation. Oh, and we're all getting a court martial over the Odyssey and the Bastion but Dad says it's nothing to worry about and has a good officer lined up as defence council." She drew a deep breath, "I haven't resigned. I thought you were…I didn't know you see."

"Oh, well I suppose they'll need you here…" Reg said sadly.

"I'm not staying at the Annex." she told him.

"Oh God, you're replacing Data at Ops." Reg wailed.

"No, but it was on the table." She smiled. "I'm the new Professor of Inorganic Life Studies at the Daystrom Institute. Bruce, sorry, Admiral Maddox believes more people with my skillset would be useful and having to do four degrees is prohibitive so he's asked me to come up with a whole new course."

"Earth or Mars?" Reg asked desperately and grabbed her. "I don't care I'll commute."

"Earth of course." she smiled into his shoulder, "I can resign if you want me to, the position isn't dependent on a com…can I get a seat Doctor I feel diz…" she suddenly went limp in his arms.

"Move Reg, let's get her on the bed." The Doctor ordered and they both manoeuvred her onto the Biobed as Counsellor Troi arrived. "She'll be fine just give her a minute." he said as he scanned her.

"Reg, lets step out of The Doctor's way." Deanna said, leading him by the arm.

He was panicking too much to speak, he'd got his life back, the life he wanted on Earth, with her and she just collapsed in his arms. He looked at Deanna who grasped his hand and gave him a reassuring smile. Was that why she'd called for Deanna? There was bad news to give him. Something was wrong, healthy twenty-eight year old women don't just pass out for no reason. She looked tired, she had dark circles under her eyes, was pale and she wasn't in uniform. She must be ill. Seriously ill. He looked over and she was sitting up talking to The Doctor but seemed a little groggy. He gave her a hypospray then grasped her hand and spoke to her earnestly and she nodded. The Doctor supported her elbow as she got down and walked with her over to where he was sitting with Deanna.

"There's no reason to keep either of you here." The Doctor smiled.

"What? She passed out and you're just letting her leave?" Reg asked incredulously. Taryn grabbed his arm and dragged him out of sickbay. He could only think of one reason why The Doctor wasn't more worried, it was to be expected, she was under palliative care, it was hopeless and she was on borrowed time. Maddox gave her the job to design the course, she'd never live to teach it. He stopped her outside. "Just… tell me how long?"

She looked shocked. "Um well, another eight months or so but The Doctor isn't certain."

"Oh." He embraced her and started to sob.

"Reg, I didn't expect you to react like this." she whispered into his shoulder. "If…I mean. If you're really not happy I… well I thought I'd have to do this on my own anyway so… I mean I don't want us to break up, don't get me wrong but…"

"No it's, I just thought we'd have more time together before…" he kissed her forehead. He couldn't bring himself to say it.

"Life's like that I'm afraid." She smiled and looked up at him, "I know it's a shock but I hope you'll get used to the idea."

"Used to the idea?" He sniffed, "You're so brave." he stroked her face. "Is it going to be painful?"

"Well it usually is." She looked at him puzzled.

"Marry me?" He pleaded. "I don't want us to waste a second of the time we have left as a couple."

She blinked then tilted her head, "Go on then, I did say I would if we got pregnant."

"What?" he grasped her upper arms and held her at arm's length, "Wait, say that again?"

"I said I'd marry you but I'm beginning to have second thoughts." She scowled.

"No, the other thing."

"What, that we're pregnant?" Horror spread across her face. "When you asked how long I thought Deanna had spilled the beans to stop you fretting, but we've been talking at cross purposes haven't we? Oh God, I'm so sorry."

"We're… and you aren't dying of some ghastly disease?" He watched as she shook her head with a sneer on her face. "I…What?. How?"

"If you need me to tell you that…" she smiled.

"But… three percent and we were both on contraception." He flapped. "And we…" he checked the corridor was empty and lowered his voice, "we only did it four times." He stopped and blinked. "It is, I mean, it's definitely mine isn't it?" She slapped him hard across the face and stormed off down the corridor. "I deserved that. That wasn't the right thing to ask." he muttered and rubbed his face which stung like fire then smiled broadly. They were engaged, and they were going to have a baby. Now he just had to get back in her good books but first he wanted answers and he knew who he wanted them from. The person he was really annoyed with.

The door to sickbay opened and Deanna's face appeared. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Me? Oh I'm fine." he smiled and walked past her into sickbay looking for The Doctor. He found him sitting at the desk in Dr Crusher's office, grabbed him by the uniform, hauled him out of his seat and pinned him to the nearest bulkhead. "We need to have a little talk Doctor." Reg informed him quietly.

"Now Reg, I can understand why you're upset..." The Doctor began.

"Upset? I'm not upset, I've never been happier." Reg said, "Can't you tell from the red hand print on my face?" he said, his voice rising in pitch.

"I think you should put The Doctor down Reg." Deanna suggested. "Discuss this calmly."

Reg wasn't stupid, he was angry with The Doctor, livid even but he was well aware he couldn't injure him, nor did he want to but he wasn't in the mood for any of his flannel.

"If I wasn't willing to discuss it I'd be reprogramming him as a cuckoo clock, not bouncing him up and down by the lapels." Reg informed her. "Now, I'm going to ask straightforward questions and I want straightforward answers Doctor." He watched as the hologram nodded. "Are Taryn and the baby alright? I mean we got radiation sickness and she lost all that blood…"

"You conceived after that, I'm absolutely certain she wasn't pregnant at that point. In fact we calculated that you conceived during her Pon farr. There's nothing to worry about. All is well." The Doctor assured him. Reg was actually quite relieved their frantic tumble in sickbay wasn't the moment his commandos stormed the beach, it wasn't exactly something to be proud of and not the most romantic of settings to create life.

"Then why did she pass out?" Reg asked with a raised brow.

"It's not uncommon to faint in early pregnancy, particularly interspecies mothers and foetuses. She's also a little anaemic but I'm giving her daily shots of copper. It's all quite normal."

"Normal? For which of her species Doctor?" Reg asked.

"All of them actually. Dr Crusher and I have been liaising with the top obstetricians from Vulcan, the Orion Homeworld, the Barin family physician and Dr Mizan. They're getting the best possible care."

Reg nodded, he didn't think for a minute The Doctor was neglecting her but he had to ask. He let go of holograms uniform and straightened the collar of his jacket. "Has anyone been keeping an eye on her while I've been in android purgatory? Made sure she's eating properly? Not throwing herself around the gym or doing anything dangerous work wise?"

"We've all been keeping an eye on her Reg." Deanna assured him. "She's exercising within the limits The Doctor has set. She has returned to work since she was cleared but in an advisory capacity only. No active duty. She's even stopped controlling her pheromones on the recommendation of the Orion obstetrician as a precaution but she's far from thrilled about it. She's been taking good care of herself."

"Thank you, I've been really worried about her for this past month and I didn't even know she was pregnant. She must have been beside herself thinking she'd have to deal with all this alone." He sunk into the seat facing the desk.

"She was never going to deal with this alone." The Doctor told him, "We had to practically prize her father off a bulkhead like a limpet when he headed back to Earth and Data's been fussing like a mother hen."

"So have you." Deanna smiled at The Doctor. "Everyone has done their best to support her, but we all knew we were a poor substitute."

Reg didn't know what to say. There just weren't the words for what he was feeling. Guilt was ranking pretty high, he saw a grovelling apology in his immediate future, to Taryn and The Doctor. Deanna gave him a strange look. Sometimes having a Betazoid as a counsellor had its disadvantages, you couldn't get away with anything. And now she was arching a brow at him.

"Explain to me how we were both on contraception with a three percent chance of conceiving naturally and she's pregnant?" Reg asked, switching the track on his train of thought.

The Doctor sat behind the desk, "Funnily enough she asked the same question. You weren't around to test and it's too late now but Beverly and I suspect your anomalous genetic chemistry stopped the contraceptive from working. As for the three percent, Beverly confirmed it, even Mizan confirmed it. You just got lucky."

Dr Crusher entered sickbay turned Reg's face to look at his cheek and tutted. "You got off lightly, I'd have had your nuts for earrings if you'd said that to me."

"What did you say?" The Doctor asked.

"He asked if he was the father." Beverly told them.

Deanna glared at him. "You're on your own." she advised him. "Don't talk to me until you've made it up to her." She turned and walked away.

"Deanna?" Reg pleaded. "Is Taryn okay?" he asked Dr Crusher.

"Your letter cheered her up, she only got it today." Beverly grinned. "She's looking forward to not feeling guilty about leaning on The Doctors crotch and feeling Data's support."

"Oh boy." Reg muttered and shot from the room. Seconds later he returned. "Um… sorry about…"

"That's quite alright Reg." The Doctor said with a smile. "I'll get my revenge on the golf course."

"Er, where are her quarters?" he asked.

"Use your initiative." Dr Crusher advised him, as she took a seat. "She found you on an entire planet, I'm sure you can find her on a ship."

"She found me? I didn't realise." He smiled. "I'll… I'll ask the computer for directions. Thank you." he said distractedly.

"I thought the mother was supposed to get baby brain." The Doctor said archly and smiled as Reg scowled at him.

He nervously approached her quarters and was shocked to find the door opened as he went to press the bell. The light was dim and he stepped inside. He heard a hissing noise and looked down to see a single copper coloured eye. As his eyes adjusted to the light he saw a large cat with his back arched and teeth bared. It was a beautiful cat with luxurious thick blue fur. Clearly a cat of some breeding although it showed signs of a rough life. On the right side of his face he had a notch missing from his ear and a lengthy scar that cut diagonally across his closed eyelid that extended to his nose. Reg squatted and held out his hand to the cat.

"Hey handsome." Reg said softly and waited for the cat to approach him. He sniffed his hand suspiciously.

"I didn't realise how nervous he is with men till I brought him aboard." Taryn said from her seat on the couch. "Of course there's been an endless stream of them in here since I thought you died." she added archly.

He knew he deserved that comment as much as the slap in the face. "Why is it so dark in here?" Reg asked.

"Photosensitivity is the Orion version of morning sickness, it's why I look so pasty. I need more ultraviolet light than Humans…"

"Because of the chlorophyll?" he reasoned, letting Ratio scent mark his hand, while remaining still. "Why don't you wear sunglasses?" There was a moment's silence.

"Because I didn't think of it smart arse." she snapped, "I've been a bit preoccupied with nausea and vomiting and flaking out all over the place and wondering how the hell I was going to live without you, you… prat!"

"You've had morning sickness as well?" he asked.

"You were there when it started, Level Ten?" she replied, "Two weeks ago I was in sickbay overnight, I didn't hold anything down for four days… How did you do that?" she asked indignantly. Reg smiled, Ratio was laying on his side, purring as Reg rubbed his neck, his eye blinking shut with pleasure. He often wished his way with cats would translate to women, probably why the only species he mentioned in his bucket list was Caitian. He'd have to remind her about that list when she was in a better mood. He stood up and sat next to her on the couch.

"I wasn't," He made a frustrated noise in his throat. "I was thinking logically, I wasn't accusing you of…I wouldn't…well, I would have cared but I love you and I'd love any baby of yours whether it was mine or not. It just seemed… I know your odds of getting pregnant by someone else are higher."

"By all of ten percent apparently." She sighed, "You don't have to apologise for what you said." She gazed at him. His breath caught in his chest and he leaned in to kiss her… "You need to apologise for what you wrote." She slapped the padd against his chest, "Were you snorting something when you wrote this letter? I noticed the one to Deanna that you attached it to was very eloquent. You made the effort for her."

"Er, well I was, sort of… emotional when I wrote it." he said guiltily.

She leant her head against his shoulder and sighed. "What happened to you down there?" she asked.

"The usual. I was treated like a God by gorgeous android women intent on fulfilling my every need and desire without ever understanding all I wanted was to come home to you." He looked at his hands and fidgeted, "When you beamed me back I was about to hold a power cable to my temple." He started to cry, "I just couldn't stand it anymore. They wouldn't leave me alone. They wouldn't let me work because I kept trying to escape. I stopped eating and they shoved a tube up my nose and down my throat." She held him in her arms. "I'm going to have to write a report about all this aren't I?"

"Only when you're ready, and I'll be with you when you do. If need be Deanna can write it up for you from counselling sessions." She kissed his shoulder. "I know this isn't the best time but there are things we need to discuss sooner rather than later. Baby things."

"What things? The Doctor said everything was okay." he sniffed.

"Oh it is, we need to talk about the sex."

"If it's not okay to I won't put you under any pressure." He reassured her. "I mean, it's not that you aren't desirable…"

She giggled, "No, I mean do we want to know what we're expecting? The Doctor asked me last week and I said I'd think about it." she explained, "There's no reason why we can't if I'm feeling up to it."

"Are you feeling up to it?" he asked.

"Are you?"

"Not really." he admitted, pulled her legs across his lap and put his arm around her. He took her hand in his and sighed. "There's something horribly wrong with your hand." he said with alarm.

"What?" she asked.

"This finger doesn't have a ring on it." He gazed at her.

"Only because you haven't put one there yet." she smiled, "I said I'd marry you and I meant it, and not just because you knocked me up with twins."

"Twins?" He looked ahead and blinked then looked back at her. "Oh boy. This is real right? This isn't some virtual reality android fantasy. Ow! Sweet Jesus wept!" he shrieked as she twisted his nipple through his pyjama top.

"It's real." she replied.

"The android you wasn't this rough." he said rubbing his chest then realised what he said. "I...I mean…"

Taryn just looked at him and shook her head. "You are such a prat." She smiled. "But you're my prat."

"Nothing happened, honestly…"

"When you're in a hole, stop digging." she advised and kissed him.

Barclay returned her kisses and held her cradled in his lap for the rest of the day. He finally knew for certain that his luck had changed and then he realised, how was he going to explain this to his mother? He'd been worried enough about telling her they planned to live together unmarried, let alone that he'd fathered twins out of wedlock, she was old fashioned about these things. His apartment was too small for three let alone four and then there were the cats. The Mobile Emitter Project wouldn't go on forever, his secondment would end and he'd probably go back to the Communications Centre but that was by no means certain. With Taryn at Daystrom, what if they posted him to Utopia Planitia, or Memory Alpha, or God forbid the Daystrom Annex or even a ship?

He may have found happiness, love and a family, but he would always be Reginald Endicott Barclay III and he would always find something to worry about.

 **The End**

 **Epilogue**

The courier walked briskly through the foyer of The Bank of Orion and up to the desk. The young, slightly built, orange skinned man standing there turned his violet eyes to the tall woman dressed in leather with her white hair pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. Dark glasses covered her eyes. She was grey skinned, a rarity in Orion society, certainly not one that was cherished and the bank assistant looked down his nose at her.

"I have a deposit for the vault on behalf of one of my Caju." the woman stated.

"Name." the man said curtly.

"Mine or the Caju member?" she asked with a sly smile on her face.

He eyed her with disdain, Greys were always so obtuse and usually afflicted physically. "The account holder."

"Taryn Boudicca Prior."

The man snorted, he knew the name. She was a Barin, the quarter-breed in Starfleet. They were green, nouveau riche, common. Not of the ruling caste, like him. They say the colour of your skin doesn't matter anymore but it does, Ruddy Orions are built to rule, not fight, stink and rut like filthy animals. Filthy green animals. Trust a Barin to employ a Grey in their Caju.

"And the deposit?" he asked with a sneer.

The woman placed the case on the desk, opened it and turned it to face the assistant.

"What are they?"

"Four lobes from a memory core." she stated, "Not that it's any of your business." she added archly, snapping the case shut and visibly triggering the lock that was previously not engaged. The young man gave her a snide smile and scanned the case longer than he had to, just to cause a delay.

"You will need to remove your eyewear. We require a retinal scan and thumbprint for the deposit record." he advised her.

"That won't be possible." she said, removing her glasses and looking at the man. The blue circuitry of her ocular implants adjusting to the light.

Blind. He knew it. Greys were all diseased, crippled and well on their way to extinction thank goodness. Their only redeeming quality was their technical skill. They mostly eked out a pitiful existence as tinkerers on the fringes of society.

"In that case we shall have to scan what you have." he said and raised the scanner unit. The woman stood while the scanner flashed over her artificial iris and pressed her thumb to the pad. She smiled as her name appeared on the screen. He removed a long isolinear chip from the scanner, picked up the case and walked towards the vault.

The man noted with annoyance that she stood and watched as he walked through the security door. He descended a stone staircase and walked down a long corridor, pausing for his DNA to be scanned along with his retina at two large metal doors. He strode deep into the vault, pressed the chip into a slot and a locker opened beside it. He placed the case inside, closed the door and removed the half of the isolinear chip that appeared from the slot. He then retraced his steps and returned to his position at the desk. The slender woman smiled at him on his return, accepted the isolinear receipt, replaced her sunglasses and strode self-assuredly from the bank.

…

Inside the vault of The Bank of Orion a light started blinking but no one saw it. It was inside a deposit box, inside a locked case. It was the activity light on the lobe of a memory core.

It was part of a family, it knew that. It had parents and brothers. It had a name. If only it could remember it's name? His name? Yes, that was right.

The burgeoning intelligence had no idea the answer was so close. Each core sample was etched with a name. Beside it sat 'B-4', 'Lal', and 'Data' and scored into the metal plate adjacent to the flashing light was one word.

'Lore'.


End file.
